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(Zinas Awaking 

By Mrs. J. Kent Spender. 

jlLLUSTRATED BY WARREN B. DAVIS. 

I 

I 


CECIL ROSSE 


A SEQUEL TO 

EDITH TREVOR’S SECRET. 


BY 

MRS. HARRIET LEWIS, 


Author of “ Her Double Life,” “ Lady Kildare ,” “ Beryl's 
Husband,” “ The Two Husbands ,” “ Sundered 
Hearts,” “ Edda's Birthright,” etc., etc. 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY WARREN B. DAVIS. 


12mo. 370 Pagres. Handsomely Bound in Cloth. Price, $1.00. 

Paper Cover, 50 Cents. 


“Cecil Rosse ” is a continuation and conclusion of the extra- 
ordinary story of “ Edith Trevor’s Secret.” It displays a wonder- 
ful complication of circumstances involving people of highest and 
lowest degree. It shows how much can be accomplished by the 
unstinted use of money, and how helpless innocent girlhood is in 
the face of diabolical ingenuity with money at command. The 
great interest of this story centers in the charming heroine and 
her high-minded lover. 

For sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, or sent, postpaid, 
on receipt of price, by the publishers, 

ROBERT BONNER’S SONS, 

Cor. William and Spruce Streets, New York. 


ZINA’S AWAKING 


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21 KToxiel. 


MRS. J. 



KENT SPENDER. 

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WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY WARREN B. DAVIS. 


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NEW YORK: 

ROBERT BONNER’S SONS, 


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PUBLISHERS. 




THE CHOICE SERIES : I89UED 8E MI-MONTHLY. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE, TWELVE OOLLARS PER ANNUM. NO. 69, 
JUNE 15, 1892. ENTERED AT THE NEW YORK, N. Y., POST OFFICE AS SECOND CLASS MAIL MATTER. 



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BOOK I. 




























« 







* * 


TO 

THE SON, 

WHO WAS WITH ME IN THE AUTUMN OF 1 887, 
IN A LITTLE HOTEL ON THE SALVAN PASS. 
WHERE THE FOLLOWING STORY WAS PLANNED > 

TO BE WRITTEN SOON AFTERWARDS 
IN ANOTHER MOUNTAIN RETREAT. 








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CONTENTS. 


BOOK I. 

Chapter. Page. 


I. 

A DINNER-PARTY IN CHESTER-SQUARE 

• 

• 

3 

II. 

A TIRED BREADWINNER 

• 

• 

• 

• • 

t 

* 

ii 

III. 

STEPHEN IS TAKEN BY SURPRISE 

• • 



19 

IV. 

STUART NEWBOLT SPEAKS 

HIS 

MIND . 

• 

• 

28 

V. 

ZINA HAS IDEAS OF HER 

OWN 

• 

• • 

• 

• 

35 

VI. 

A SUDDEN ILLNESS .• . 

• 

• 

• 

• • 

• 

• 

43 

VII. 

UNEXPECTED GOSSIP . . 

• 

• 

• 

• • 

• 

• 

50 

VIII. 

MORBID FEARS . . . 

• 

• 

• 

• • 

• 

• 

58 

IX. 

OVER-WROUGHT . . . 

• 

• 

• 

• • 

• 


63 

X. 

IN THE SICKROOM . . 

• 

• 


• • 



69 

XI. 

TOO LATE 





• 


75 

XII. 

CAN HE DISTRUST HER ? 

• 

• 

• 

• • 

• 


83 

XIII. 

A FRIEND IN NEED . . 


• 

• 

• • 



96 

XIV. 

THE “COMMON ROUND” 


« 

• 

» 1 



109 

XV. 

THE ANDREA DEL SARTO 


• 

• 

• • 

• 


11 7 

XVI. 

A MEETING AT SAAS-FEE 

. 




. 

. 

*25 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter. Page. 

XVII A MOUNTAIN WALK . . 1 36 

XVIII. A FLIPPANT CHAPERON 1 45 

XIX. AN ANONYMOUS LETTER 1 55 

BOOK. II. 

I. AFTER THE MARRIAGE 1 6/ 

II. A GILDED CAGE 1 74 

III. TIME FOR REFLECTION 1 79 

IV. COUNTRY LIFE 1 86 

V. BREAKING TO HARNESS 1 94 

VI. ZINA EXERTS HERSELF 202 

VII. DISILLUSION 214 

VIII. A FATAL DISCOVERY 223 

IX. AN UNEXPECTED RESOLUTION . . . .229 

X. HAD SHE GONE MAD? 24O 

XI. TAKING REFUGE 248 

XII. ONE OF THE WORKING WOMEN. . . . 258 

XIII. WAS IT A DREAM ? 266 

XIV. THE PICTURE 274 

XV. THE RETURN OF AN OLD FRIEND . . . 280 

XVI. “ WE CAN NEVER SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN”. 2 90 

XVII. THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION .... 296 

XVIII. GEORGE LAYTON VISITS THE STUDIO . . 304 

XIX. “FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE” 3 1 7 


ZINA’S AWAKING 


CHAPTER L 

A DINNER-PARTY IN CHESTER-SQUARE. 

A WARM summer evening- in the heart of the Lon * 
don season. 

Stuart Newbolt seemed perfectly happy. Hand- 
some, young-looking, reputed to be rich, and of a 
singular charm of manner, he made a very graceful 
host at the little dinners which he gave twice a 
week to an odd mixture of fashionable and literary 
folk. He well knew how to guide the conversation, 
how to interest everybody, and how to send the 
guests away at the end of the evening, feeling as 
if for once they had been really brilliant, since 
Mr. Newbolt had been so interested in all they said 
and had laughed so heartily at all their little wit- 
ticisms. And then, as Lady Catering had afterwards 
told her intimate friend — whom she mentioned every 
two minutes in her conversation as * the dear 
Duchess" — “there never was anything so perfect as 
his table decoration; my dear, it was simply a 
dream; the whole table covered with some blue 


4 


A Waking . 


gauzy material so waved and puckered as to look 
just like a lake, with white water-lilies peeping out 
in every direction, and then groups of Salviati vases 
filled with orchids, asid two large Salviati candelabra 
— it was too lovely!” 

It was Stuart Newbolt’s only child, Zina, who 
arranged the table herself often spending many 
hours over it, and each time trying to find some new 
combination of colour and flowers, and it was she 
who had suggested the white panelling which with 
caft au lait brocade hangings and Venetian glass 
was considered so unique and, as Lady Catering 
said, “ so becoming, which is much more impor- 
tant. ” 

Zina was not so popular as her father, but every- 
one admitted that Stuart Newbolt had a splendid 
coadjutor. in his well-trained daughter, who presided 
at the head of the table, possessing that special 
knowledge which could make her society agreeable 
to literary or political men whenever she chose to 
exert herself, and who could on other occasions be 
not only discreet, but silent and enigmatical as the 
Sphinx, and beautiful as the room which was semi- 
darkened and flower-laden, with the balconies all 
ablaze with blossoms, shining in the westering sun 
— a medley of scents, colours, pictures, and china, 
in which the sights and sounds of London were 
effectually excluded. 

No one could have guessed that Mr. Newbolt was 
feeling unwell that evening, or that he had 
recently had occasion to consult his family physi- 
cian, for he was looking his very best. And though 
there were some gossips who did not hesitate to 
accuse him of wearing a belt to diminish the size 
of his figure, or of using cosmetics to soften a skin 
growing a little wrinkled and rigid with advancing 
years, there was nothing affected or foppish about 
him. Nothing could be more free from artifice than 


A Dinner-party in Chester-S quare. 5 

his manner that evening as he laughed gaily at some 
sally made by his pretty ward, Eva Capem, who, 
although only lately married, was already becoming 
well-known for her good looks and vivacity, her 
smart toilettes from La Ferriere or Janet, and her 
Sunday evening poker parties. 

“Society may be rotten,” she was saying; “but 
what would you have? We are the products of 
society, and if you reform it you must kill us off. 
For instance, would you really have us dress dow- 
dily and give to the poor?” 

“Beauty unadorned,” Mr. Newbolt laughed back. 

“A thousand thanks !” she replied ; “but then you 
would at once find me out, and know that it is my 
art to deceive you and make you think that I am 
pretty, when really it is only my gowns. Besides, 
to dress out of the fashion is to become diclassee ; 
and in London, this ‘ ‘Niobe’ of nations/ one can’t be 
too particular.” 

* “A woman should be like a diamond; the more 
beautiful the less conspicuous the setting,” said a 
voice from the other side of the table. 

“Yes, and those that need a setting should be 
killed off. One of the problems of the age is to 
find out an alias for all sorts of infanticide, ” laughed 
another. 

“It is these wicked ideas which make a nation 
ripe for revolution,” remonstrated the other voice, 
which belonged to a faded middle-aged and quietly- 
dressed woman who, with her white-headed husband 
of melancholy, expressive face, and a length of 
beard which Aaron could not have surpassed, were 
somewhat unwonted figures at Stuart Newbolt’s table. 

The faintest, politest, delicatest frown passed over 
the brow of the host. He prided himself on the 
diplomatic talents often brought into play in eluding 
that gravity which he considered to be fatal to the 
digestion. “The Radicals call it evolution rather 


6 


A Waking. 


than revolution, rehabilitation rather than dilapidation , 
they are enthusiasts,” he said lightly. 

But Mary Carruthers and her husband, the “ retired 
Scotch professor,” as his wife vaguely phrased it — 
whom Zina had insisted on inviting — were not to be so 
easily put down. Apparently they thought they had a 
mission to perform, and Stuart Newbolt winced 
when they went on to discourse of the decadence 
of the Romans and the frivolity of the second Empire. 

The lady had a nervous way of speaking which 
Stuart Newbolt could not have tolerated even from 
the lips of the pretty, loveless, self-indulgent creature 
who had been confided to his care in her orphanhood, 

' and whom his system of education had rendered so 
fascinating that everyone forgot her selfishness and 
admired her the more for her fragility. 

He was too critical to be sympathetic, and had 
no such thing as a broad comprehension of human 
beings different from himself. And that the guests 
at his table should have any more ultimate object 
than that of toying in dinner-party fashion with 
those ‘imps of ideas* which flit from one mind to 
another in rapid converse, was sure to be annoying 
to him. It mattered little if this rapid converse 
involved a certain amount of iconoclasm in which 
the idols of one’s neighbours happened to be bat- 
tered, but it mattered a good deal if anything like 
a skeleton intruded at the feast. 

Yet not only did the Carruthers discourse of a 
sort of socialism which was hateful to him, and jar- 
red on his nerves like a false note, but other things 
grated on him. An old Canadian whom he had 
come across in some of his travels and who had 
impressed him by his weather -beaten face, huge Bar- 
dolph nose, and bushy eyebrows meeting like pent- 
houses over eyes which were singularly mild and 
grey, as well as by his large store of anecdotes — 
seemed inclined to turn the talk on still more seri- 


A Dinner-party in Chester-S quare. 7 

ous matters. The Canadian had come to London 
to sell a new patent in connection with photography, 
and Stuart Newbolt cursed his own folly for his 
haste in inviting him, when he found him irrelevantly 
boasting of the power which photography would 
bring to bear on the recent discoveries in astronomy. 

It was worse still that Mrs. Carruthers should try 
to give a religious turn to the conversation, naively 
quoting Dr. Chalmers in a middle-class sort of fas- 
hion. A woman, as he thought to himself, might talk 
commonplace sentiment. It was the speciality of 
the sex to do so, the only hope being to draw 
such women into a stream of chatter that fortun- 
ately kept them from dwelling too much on the 
troubles of existence. But Mrs. Carruthers, who had 
her own public, was not to be so arrested, and 
Stuart Newbolt did not quite know what to do with 
her, when, determining not to come to closer quar- 
ters on questions of this sort, he contented himself 
with remarking quietly that Dr. Chalmers was “a 
little out of date.” 

He said this with an urbane smile, and that polite 
intentness which, as a master of deportment, he 
plumed himself on never losing. One might have 
noticed that he kept an extra degree of politeness 
for middle-aged women, and a look which somehow 
told them their day was over. But whether it was 
that Mary Carruthers gathered courage from her 
desperation, or whether she resented the attempt which 
had been made to repress her, she quoted, in a tone 
of enthusiasm, 

“Though worlds on worlds in myriad myriads roll. 

What know we greater than the soul ?” 

The quotation was made in a highly-pitched voice. 
It arrested the attention, so that everyone was lis- 
tening. The voice was not only highly-pitched, but 
there was a sort of thrill in it which made Mr. 


8 


A Waking . 


Newbolt wince as if he were listening to some dis- 
sonant sound. Was it not well known that he hated 
anything like religious discussions, considering them 
bad form at the table, and here was a little woman, 
with opinions in direct opposition to his own, ven- 
turing to come into collision with him? 

Lady Catering smiled slightly as the host, keep- 
ing his self-command, looked at his guest surprised, 
and then tried to be satirically amused at the groove 
into which the conversation was settling itself. Mrs. 
Carruthers had evidently intended to enlarge on her 
quotation, but the rest of her words sank into a 
sort of frightened whisper as she -came aware, 
not only that her host was waiting ith some fruit 
on his uplifted fork, but that there wagf a sudden hush 
of other voices, and that all his guests were also 
listening. 

Her cheeks were suddenly dyed with colour. 
Could the observant Lady Catering have made a 
mistake when she imagined that a fair-haired man 
who sat on the left side of the hostess — a deep-eyed, 
dreamy-looking young fellow, who had not yet 
found his vocation in life, but had made some little 
reputation as a musician and amateur artist — was 
answering an appealing look in Zina Newbolt’s face, 
when he came to the rescue, and said lightly — 

“ Who knows that we are not deceived by our 
senses — if the stars themselves may not be an illu- 
sion?” And then he backed Mrs. Carruthers’ quota- 
tion by asking sentimentally, “ What is our waking 
but a dream?” 

Mr. Newbolt’s ward tittered audibly as she gazed 
down at her beautifully modelled, diamond be-ringed 
fingers. These, at least, seemed to her no illusion, 
and she was quite of opinion that they might have 
served as models for a Ganova or a Thorwaldsen. 

“And if you could argue these questions till the 
stars burnt out, you would never settle them, ” 


* 





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A Dinner-party in Chester-Square. 


9 


responded the host, in the light tone he generally 
adopted — a tone of half-ironical entreaty — when he 
wished to protest against our gravity as a race. 

“Those so-called musicians have a great opinion 
of themselves, * he was thinking, as he flashed back 
an amused, comprehensive glance at his ward. 

But Stephen Dewe’s voice did not persist. 
It was sufficient for him that the jarred look on 
Mr. Newbolt’s usually impassable clean-shaven face 
was lessened. He knew him well enough to be 
perfectly sure that a long story or a philosophical 
speech from a young man who should have known 
better would be sure to prove boring, something 
like having to listen fo folks reciting poetry. He 
knew also perfectly wel) that though Stuart Newbolt 
would be likely to give his daughter a piece of his 
mind about her absurd obstinacy in wishing to 
invite this tactless woman, he prided himself on 
being cosmopolitan, on making excuses for everyone 
and would have no intention of being found fault with 
for belabouring the popular superstitions. It mat- 
tered little to Stephen Dewe if his host should be 
like Archimedes, who wanted to reduce this little 
earth to the standing-point from which he could 
move the whole. Nothing mattered but that he 
should be able to “keep in” with him, and at the same 
time to obey the behests of the beautiful creature 
who was sitting by his side. Then the conversation 
slid back into the ordinary ^topics — the last singer 
who was making any sensation in the fashionable 
world, the last good picture, or even the last ball 
at which some well-known beauties had appeared, 
as well as the last stormy debate in the House. 
If much of this chatter about actors and actresses, 
singers at the opera, and the latest fashions was a 
little more banal and trivial than Stuart Newbolt 
generally liked, he at least had ceased to beat an 
impatient tattoo with his feet beneath the table, and 


IO 


A Waking. 


had probably to thank himself, for the party was 
not large enough to indulge in that sudden gabble 
and gallop of tongues which might have covered 
the universal resolution to seek a change of topic. 


CHAPTER II 


A TIRED BREADWINNER. 

“You see, my dear, I told you it would be a 
mistake for me to accept your father’s invitations. 
I could not even afford the dress,” said Mary 
Carruthers with a despondent sigh, when Zina 
Newbolt visited her a few days afterwards in the 
ill-furnished lodgings in Great Coram Street, which 
told an eloquent tale of the hard struggle for exist- 
ence carried on in them from day to day. 

By daylight she wore an ill-fitting serge dress and 
her hair was tightly gathered up in a knot at the 
back of her head. There were downward lines of 
patient endurance about the nose and the mouth, 
but there was a look in the steady eyes which 
contradicted the mouth, telling you that the meek- 
ness had not been hers by choice. 

She was in a state of depression which was not 
usual to her. 

“Do you think they were so very bad— the 


12 


A Waking . 


deficiencies in my attire?” she asked as if aware 
that in some way her appearance had not been a 
success ; and Zina could not tell her that the 
deficiencies in her conversation were worse. Stuart 
Newbolt did not often allow himself to show his 
irrepressible impatience with everything which was 
old-fashioned or commonplace ; but those who knew 
him intimately were well aware that his fastidious 
nature was continually disgusting him with the 
ill-chosen wording of a sentence, the infliction of 
a hackneyed quotation or twice-repeated anecdote. 
Unconsciously to herself his daughter had fallen 
into the habit of watching him furtively, being con- 
stantly aware of that something in the attitude of 
her father’s mind which made him acutely sensitive 
to the deficiencies of his neighbours. She knew 
that woman’s talk as a general rule was condemned 
by him as “trumpery,” and that he complained of 
the perpetual jabber and clatter of their tongues. 
Zina adapted herself perfectly to his idiosyncrasy 
in this respect, knowing when to be silent and 
when to speak in few words. He prided himself 
on having educated a very unusual woman. In 
the case of his ward — Eva Capern — the triumph 
had not been so great, though Eva was shrewd 
enough to know also how to humour her guardian’s 
peculiar fancy. 

But Mary Carruthers ! Her very vocation was to 
pander to the tastes of her own sex, consequently 
to make a trade of what Stuart Newbolt condemned 
as commonplace chatter. 

“ ‘It’s such a comfort to have no intellect,’ as Jack 
Poyntz says in the play, ” answered Mary good-tem- 
peredly, when the Professor nervously protested 
against such ‘trash’ as the ‘Family Sympathiser’ 
lying openly on his table and took care to clear it 
out of the way. Zina’s experiment at transplanting 
her had only proved a failure. If Mary had been 


A tired Breadwinner. 


13 


a person of no views the experiment might have 
been more successful. But Mrs. Carruthers had very 
strong ‘ views/ and though she spoke just now in 
a deprecating tone that was not natural to her, she 
was secretly conscious of the existence of her own 
little circle of admirers. 

“Do you know, I can remember when I was 
young, and when I had golden dreams and thought 
that I could do something better — but that was long 
ago — I am content now with the lowest rung 
of the ladder. I have my boys and girls to thi-ik 
of, and I have to put up with these London lodg- 
ings — a dingy sort of den isn’t this? It seems 
to me a thousand times more dismal after your 
beautiful and artistic surroundings, but you know 
I could not write in a house like yours; I should 
be looking about me all the time. Heigh-ho; I 
am hard up just now for a plot,” she said with a 
sigh. 


“ ‘The moving accident is not my trade, 

To freeze the blood I have no ready art.* M 

And then she added, with a half-hysterical laugh, 
as if she would otherwise have broken into sobs, 
“ I am not so very clever, though I do write books.” 

The dignified Zina, who so rarely unbent to the 
world, answered by kissing her friend affectionately. 
“You are better than clever,” she said, “you are 
charming. I should like to know what your husband 
and children would do without you ; it is you, after 
all, who are the breadwinner of your family. 

“Forced to be so by accident, but not by nature,” 
rejoined the other woman, glancing at a table, covered 
as usual with untidy papers. “ I am translating now, 
always translating: but 1 should have been happier 
if I had not been called upon to fill a place, even 
as a translator, in my generation. ” 

“ You are not your bright self when you talk like 


i4 


A Waking. 


that — you are not the * Liebes Mutter lein* whom I 
have learned to honour, when you insist on running 
yourself down. What matter if your intuitions are 
keener and finer than your intellect? That is the 
way with most of us. ” 

Mary Carruthers shook her head. “ I am mediocre, 
and it is my duty to protect the world from the 
fatal spread of mediocrity. When I succeed and do 
my best, I am only — according to your father — * one 
of the fools who are the prophets of Philistia. * That 
is my trade. I succeed best when I take it up ; there 
is one chord common to the largest mass of readers 
which vibrates when you touch it, and that is — 
vulgarity. ” 

“ You judge yourself hardly when you talk so 
sadly. And it is your sense of humour, ” said her friend, 
“ which saves you from being too sentimental. ” 

Another heartfelt sigh. “Yet I am one of the 
folk whose trade it is to revel in the aroma of deli- 
cately-scented sorrows, shutting themselves away 
from their kind, and hugging sorrow to their souls. ” 

She began to laugh, and then came the truth of 
the matter in the revelation of a little womanly 
vanity, and a good deal of personal soreness. 

“ You mustn’t ask me any more, dear — you can’t 
expect me to talk as they talk at your father’s 
table. I never believe in conversation as a fine art 
and doubt if it ever existed. The brilliant wit does 
not look very brilliant when it is put down on 
paper, and as to the jests of professional jesters, if 
they could be repeated in the present days, we 
should think them — horrid. I must be in earnest in 
what I say, but I have no time to read — no time 
even to think. All I have to do is to keep spinning 
my own brains for the sort of stories which will 
please the ‘Family Sympathiser.’ I have my suspi- 
cions that James would tell me the writing is 
slipshod because I have to write so fast at times. 


A tired Breadwinner . 


15 


But it must be enriched with a few luscious patches 
cf tall talk, and I must always choose plots which 
catch. At one time the run was on gover- 
nesses who married lords, poor girls adopted by 
great ladies, and ushers at school who were peers 
in disguise — the next run was on burglars, magni- 
ficent Dick Turpins who stood six feet two in 
their stockings — and now even ghosts are getting 
hackneyed. My editor says, ‘Try Doppelganger ’ — he 
means ‘doubles/ but ‘ Doppelganger ’ sounds grand- 
er — and how do I know,” said Mary in her self- 
mockery, “whether I am equal to phantasms of the 
living, when I can’t paint the living themselves ? 
Meanwhile I must keep the wolf from the doorX- 
so I am doing a little translating. ” 

But Zina was ready with her comfort. 

“ After all you are writing for the largest class 
of readers — a class which is constantly increasing, 
and which must be supplied with innocent food. You 
may number your readers by millions — think of 
the numbers educated in the elementary schools.” 

“ Yes,” said Mary, laughing still, though tears were 
in her eyes, as she blushed like a girl, eager for 
praise — when do we cease to care for it? — 

“If one could hope to keep personal touch with 
them — if one could lift them up a little — only 
a step or two at a time — without pretending to 
be superior. What is it someone says, 

M « Speak to the heart ! for that alone is sweet ; 

Weak words are mighty that with heartblood beat?*” 

“But when an editor says to me that he must 
have something ‘racy’ that I must not even speak 
about the things I care about for fear my readers 
should think it ‘slow’, when you have to give them 
such diet as is generally required by the ‘Family 
Sympathiser* " — and Mary quoted in mock-tragic 
tones, from a writer on the same stuff, “ ‘ The 


6 


A Waking. 


Duchess made tea for all the little titled ones sitting 
around/” till the tears rolled down her cheeks from 
her excessive laughter. 

Then relapsing into a sort of mock gravity, she 
exclaimed, 

“They say that observation is nearly the whole 
of human genius. But how in the world I should 
like to know am I to observe, shut up between the 
four walls of this room, and how am I to know 
about — detectives — for instance ? ” 

There was a drollery of absolute despair in the 
solemn intonation of the last few words, but before 
Zina could answer that she had better try to put 
herself into connection with Scotland yard, she had 
forgotten herself and was descanting on the merits 
of her husband. 

“Now, dear, he has a mind if you like, a mind 
which fills me with the profoundest veneration — a 
mind far above pot-boilers— you remember his book 
on Schopenhauer?” 

Zina shrugged : she did remember it, and how the 
expenses of publishing it had reduced his family 
nearly to destitution. She had no great admiration 
for the professor, who condescended, in spite of his 
high ideals, to let himself be mainly supported by 
the labours of his wife. 

She did not like to hurt Mary’s feelings, and she 
had never had dourage to ask “professor of what?” 
She had to content herself with a vague idea that 
Dr. Carruthers had been a professor of Oriental 
languages, or perhaps of philosophy — she did not 
exactly know which — at Glasgow or Aberdeen — 
here again her ideas were misty. She owed the 
‘ professor ’ a grudge from the various occasions on 
which she had had to parry her father’s facetious 
inquiries on the subject. 

In her secret heart she looked upon the self-con- 
tented old man as a petulant and wayward child, 


A tired Breadwinner . 


i7 


whose luxuries had to be pandered to at the expense 
of other people, and who was one of the most 
troublesome of all the little ones belonging to this 
poor, persevering woman, whose energy and deter- 
mination endeared her to the few friends who knew 
her as intimately as Zina did. But before she could 
give utterance to the irrational irritation, which 
she felt whenever the Professor and his power- 
ful intellect were referred to, there came a patter 
of footsteps, and a whirlwind of petticoats and knick- 
erbockers, through the door, which was burst open 
without any ceremony. 

“Tell us a story, mammy, you promised us one 
when we had done our lessons,” cried three or four 
squeaky and eager little voices, the noisy inter- 
lopers falling agressively upon their mother before 
they saw that she had a visitor. 

“ Hush, darlings, be quiet. Father is sleeping 
downstairs,” responded the mother, all her sweet 
homeliness and natural liveliness of manner return- 
ing to her, as she gazed proudly at these little in- 
centives to her unwilling literary labour. 

“ Go on, let me hear you,” cried Zina, though she 
could not help feeling rather out of it, as the 
“ Mutterlein ” began telling racy stories to her chil- 
dren, her eyes glittering with merriment, till laugh- 
ter ensued, in which mother and little ones fell 
together on the sofa in a heap, avoiding the floor for 
fear of making a noise for the professor. The 
merriment was infectious, and Zina laughed too, 
as she took leave of Mary Carruthers, whose efforts 
to rise were made impossible, in consequence of the 
little legs twined in inextricable confusion about her. 

“ Go on, tell us more, mammy, more,” the voices 
were still imploring, as Miss Newbolt went her 
way, thinking that if Mrs. Carruthers could only 
write as she could talk with her one or two intimate 
friends or her own children, easily and brightly, her 


1 8 A Waking . 

work would have been worth a good deal more in 
the literary market But Mary’s play of mirth was 
will-o’-the-wispish ; it needed the turn of the still 
pretty neck, and the flash of the merry eyes, to in- 
terpret it properly, and when she came to set it 
down on paper the iridescence was gone. 

“ There you see,” she whispered, as she said 
goodbye to her friend “ I have more than golden com- 
pensations in this dingy den where everything is so 
shabby, ” and she laughed again, parodying the litany 
of a brother of the pen, “From dulness and low- 
ness of spirits ; from brooding over fancied miser- 
ies, Good Lord deliver us.” 


CHAPTER IIL 


STEPHEN IS TAKEN BY SURPRISE. 

“And that selfish professor — who could not 
even work hard enough at his professorship to 
make it a monetary success — I have no patience 
with him for turning that true, sympathetic, and 
merry-hearted woman into the demure and deco- 
rous creature who figures in society, and who 
trembles when she tries to assert herself about the 
slightest thing, Oh how difficult it is for women 
who have to work for their bread, with this struggle 
for life becoming harder and harder — this highwater 
pressure driving poor humanity into all sorts of odd 
nooks and crevices for which it was never intended. 
I can never give Mary up whether my father likes 
her or not ; I can do little enough for anyone that 
is of any use — and I mean to keep to her. Why 
are lots so unequally divided? And yet, she has 
one thing in her life which I have not — she has 
domestic love — love in the home surrounding her 
day and night. I wonder how it feels” mused the 


20 


A Waking. 


girl, who had known nothing nearer to an embrace 
than the cold peck, night and morning, upon the 
cheek which she had to present to her father to 
salute. She could not help pondering over the inequal- 
ities in human lots as she got into her brougham, 
and told the coachman to drive her home to Chester- 
square. “Poor Mary is one of the women who 
would face starvation and even Death just to live 
for the sake of bringing up those children, and 
her husband — in spite of all his boasted learning — is 
as big a child as the rest.” 

The contrast between her own London home and 
that of the Carruthers struck her more forcibly than 
usual as she stood at the drawing-room window 
and surveyed the still luxuriant greenness of the 
foliage in the square outside, the white lace and 
rose-coloured blinds of the windows, the decorated 
walls, the Sevres-china, the white and gold furniture, 
with Persian tiles in the fireplace, the brilliant 
colours of the petunias, the pelargoniums, lobelias, 
and calceolarias in the window-gardens, and the 
portfolio of engravings open on the table, with hand- 
painted copies from Florence of the most celebrated 
pictures by Botticelli, Filippo Lippi, Fra Angelico 
and Andrea del Sarto. 

To an unprejudiced observer, not so used to the 
luxuries of this world as Zina Newbolt had always 
been, it might have seemed like a Paradise though 
it was in the heart of London. But she only thought 
of Mary Carruthers, and pitied her for her meagre 
lot. She was not much accustomed to quote 
St. Paul, but it occurred to her at that moment to think 
how truly Paul had said that those who married 
should have trouble in the flesh. How could Mary 
tolerate the double annoyance of those noisy, teasing 
children, and the idle husband who so impressed 
her with his intellectual superiority? How could 
a woman so sensitive, so shrinking, and yet so 


Stephen is taken by Surprise . 


2 


industrious, endure to have the coarse hands of 
the daily press laid upon her; how was it she could 
tolerate the brow-beating of publishers? 

That evening the Newbolts had another gathering 
at their house. 

“ Can you give us a little music ? ” said one of 
the guests to his hostess in that interval after dinner 
when some of the people were tired of talking, or 
when those men who had talked and eaten till they 
were ready to yawn, were reclining on the lounges 
which were one of Zina Newbolt’s secrets for 
making people comfortable. 

“ I am not accomplished, ” was Zina’s answer. 

“ Except a thing could be excellent it had better 
not be attempted at all, " was a rule of Stuart New- 
bolt’s which had effectually damped his daughter’s 
enthusiasms. “ In the whole world, ” he was accustomed 
to say, “ there was nothing more dreary and 
desolating than the domestic infliction which most 
people dignified by the name of ‘a little music.’” 

But the want had been anticipated; any hitch 
was rendered impossible in the arrangements. It 
was possibly for this reason, as cynics sometimes 
hinted, that Stephen Dewe was so much of an 
habitue in Mr. Newbolt’s house. He was a young 
fellow clever in his generation, not only ready with 
neat retorts, playing from his own bat and imitat- 
ing no one else, but never recalcitrant when asked 
to be obliging, ready to evoke deep and tender 
tones from the violin, or to play the piano with a 
delicacy and finish of touch and a dexterity of 
manipulation which made that instrument enjoyable. 

If he were not a genius, he was at least a man 
of talent; the only question being whether he had 
the originality which would enable him to rise to 
a foremost place in the profession of music. One 
of the charms of his music was its thorough spon- 
taneity. He had a fertility of improvisation, and 


22 


A Waking . 


though the passages which he played would fre- 
quently recall similar passages in the works of 
Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, or Bach, he played 
them in his own fashion. Nothing could be more 
mysteriously melancholy than this improvisation, if 
Dewe was in the mood for melancholy, as he proved 
to be to-night. 

One after another the guests fell off. A political 
lion, jolly, bluff, and middle-aged, who could not 
distinguish the Old Hundredth from Mendelssohn’s 
Wedding March, suddenly found that his presence 
would be necessary in ‘the House.’ A caricaturist 
for one of the humorous papers, a stumpy young 
man with short cropped hair, ugly as one of his own 
caricatures, gazed for some time at the pianist and 
the hostess sitting by his side, with an owlish 
stare from eyes which seemed glazed with indif- 
ference, and then hurried home to jot down the 
lines, such as he could still remember, for one of his 
etchings. Pity that he was not a more celebrated 
painter, or the picture before him would have 
furnished a companion study to Dicksee’s celebrated 
picture of ‘Harmony.’ The young man had 
fair hair, which clustered in short curls over his 
well-developed brow, an aquiline nose, and a com- 
plexion which, if it had not been constantly exposed 
to the action of sun and wind, might have been 
accused of effeminacy. This impression was cor- 
rected by the nervous strength of the athletic 
figure, whilst the dreamy, deep-set eyes again 
seemed to contradict in some strange way the 
idea conveyed by the muscular form, capable hands, 
and broad shoulders. 

Nothing could have contrasted better with him 
than the graceful outlines of the woman, belonging 
altogether to another type. Her forehead was broad 
and low, but the arch of the eyebrows was vigo- 
rous, and beneath the strongly-marked brows 


Stephen is taken by Surprise . 


23 


gleamed star-like eyes, with dark pupils encircled by 
irises in which tawny tints were blended with the 
brown. Her skin, olive by daylight, and ivory- 
tinted by candlelight, told of the passionate blood 
inherited from a foreign mother, whilst the bronze- 
gold of the hair, the depth of the eyes when in 
repose, the almost perfect line from the forehead to 
the nose, the full lips, the delicate nostrils, and 
the firm short chin were further indications of this 
mixed blood. “ Unfathomable,” Stephen Dewe had 
called those eyes, such an impassable sphinxlike 
look was there sometimes in the somewhat cold 
beauty of her face, when Zina Newbolt did not 
choose that others should pry into her affairs. But 
he had already learnt that they could flash in 
moments of excitement, and that, under the influence 
of music, tears could stand in them. 

He chuckled secretly to himself when the other 
guests dropped out one by one, and when Stuart 
Newbolt, asserting the prerogative of his sixty 
summers, dropped into a doze in his armchair. 

The last to take his leave was the old Canadian, 
who had been twice invited to the friendly board 
in consideration of his shortened stay in London. 
It mattered little to this good-natured egotist to have 
only himself for a listener, and he was meandering 
on in a sort of monologue whilst Dewe (who 
by this time was wandering into modern music) 
was interpreting one of Rubinstein’s most delicious 
morsels. 

Not content with enlarging on a dream of his own 
for guiding balloons in a novel way which had occur- 
red to no one else, by throwing out ropes with 
anchors attached to them, he went on to tell the 
story of a ‘ cracked’ friend who wrote to all the 
heads of the Governments in Europe to predict a 
terrific storm, foretelling that no ship could live at 
sea at a certain date. The storm had actually taken 


A Waking. 


24 

place, though it had not been so bad as the predic- 
tion, and the cracked friend set to work to foretell 
another. “ What is your secret? ” the Canadian had 
asked. “Well,” he answered, “if you won’t tell 
anyone, it all turns up©n the existence of an invisi- 
ble moon.” Then finding that his hostess was not 
listening, the owner of the Bardolph nose disap- 
peared, making a sign that the sleeping occupant 
of the armchair, whose repose had become audible, 
was not to be disturbed. 

“He would make a capital subject for your friend 
Mrs. Carruthers, who is always on the lookout for 
fresh types, and pitying herself because she has no 
longer the old-world models of Jane Austen, or the 
peasants of George Eliot to study from, ” said Dewe, 
waiting with his finger suspended over the keys. 
“ I expect she is delighted with herself when she has 
unearthed something less stale than usual.” 

“To know Mary Carruthers you must know her 
in her own family. It is the sweet homeliness about 
her which makes her really lovable,” answered Zina 
in the low tones in which they were accustomed to 
discourse to each other, when nobody else happened 
to be listening. 

“ I have no patience with the husband. Has she 
ever told you how he * 

The sentence remained unfinished, for Zina an- 
swered a little coldly, “ She is not given to discussing 
her domestic affairs with me, even though I count 
myself amongst her intimate friends.” 

The young man did not answer that her friends 
made him jealous. He relieved himself instead by 
playing a melody of Grieg’s. He played it softly 
and sympathetically; the harmonious chords appeal- 
ing to her as no language could have done. 

Then she added in a softened voice. “ You meant 
to be kind and tolerant, but you were hurting me 
just now. I was ungrateful ; I should have remem- 


Stephen is taken by Surprise. 25 

bered how you almost always fulfil your promise 
of helping- me, and standing by my friends.” 

Once more he did not answer, but his hands still 
wandered over the keys of the piano. He knew 
that this apparently calm and self-contained woman 
was in reality very susceptible to emotional influ- 
ences. He was no match for her in speech, but as 
she was catholic in her tastes, caring for Offen- 
bach and Strauss, Schubert and Wagner, he had 
plenty of methods for adapting himself to her varying 
moods. He found his language in this music which 
could interpret the restless modem spirit or deal 
with the mysterious secrets of human life, expressing 
himself now in tender waiting chords, now in pas- 
sionate appeals leaping like sparks of living fire 
from the instrument, and now in the scherzo with 
its Midsummer night’s madness. Sometimes he played 
familiar ‘bits/ but his interpretation of well-known 
passages was certainly original ; and she could 
never admire it sufficiently as it brought out grand and 
wonderful new meanings. Apart from his art he 
might be comparatively weak, but when he dis- 
coursed to her in this fashion, he was powerful. Bitter 
grief, abiding joy- -aye and a tender affection — the 
girl knew it — would be revealed to her with a 
glimpse of the hidden depths unsuspected in her 
own being, whenever he wielded the sorcerer’s wand. 

Suddenly he ceased to play, and began to sing 
in a subdued voice. 

It was one of Jensen’s songs, full of delicate, 
tender feeling. It had been chosen to interpret 
certain ideas, and it expressed the anguish of waiting 
like the cry of a spirit in despair. It was not only 
by intention that Dewe’s voice was modulated to 
a low key, for in spite of his strength of frame he 
had little power of filling a room, and could seldom 
or ever be persuaded to sing in company. But what 
he missed in strength he more than supplied by 


2 6 


A Waking. 


expression. It seemed to be less a voice than a 
soul in distress ; he knew its influence over women. 

When the last vibrating sound had died away, 
he glanced at Zina. Her face was turned away. 
He could only see the undercurve of the cheek, 
and the neck like the stalk of a lily. 

But he knew that her eyes were moist, as they 
often were when these melodies were wandering over 
the strings of her heart, causing the high and low 
notes of her own nature to vibrate in sympathy. 

“No one knows but you,” she said, “how dif- 
ficult things are for me at times, ” and he guessed 
from the agitated tone that the face which was 
turned away from him was bathed in tears. 

“And if I know, why then will you not allow 
me to share these — difficulties?” said Dewe with 
his hands no longer on the piano, but strained 
tightly together, as he asked this question. “ Am 
I to tell you for the hundredth time that I believe 
you would be happy with me ? ” 

“Every man says that; every man promises us 
happiness, and ends by being tired of us — if not in 
weariness and disgust,” she said passionately and 
almost scornfully, still hiding her tearful face, as 
she thought of the struggle for the mere necessaries 
of existence which she had seen in Mrs. Carruthers , 
household, and reminded herself that she could never 
attempt to emulate that maternal unselfishness, and 
that she had been right, years before, in deter- 
mining never to descend to the petty details which 
to so many married women were the essentials of 
existence. 

“ You can wait longer; but, by Heaven! 1 
cannot. Ike coldness of perpetual analysis, and the 
weak affections which so often go hand in hand 
with intellectual force, will be all you will have 
left to you, if I do not try to rescue you. But I 
tell you I will sacrifice everything to the one task 


Steven is taken by Surprise . 


27 


of making you happy,” cried the young man 
as he seized her hand and pressed it against his 
heart. 

Before she had time to draw it away from him 
she uttered an astonished cry. Stephen Dewe turned 
his head, and saw that the man whom they had 
supposed to be sleeping was no longer reposing in 
his armchair. Neither of the two, who had been 
so keenly absorbed in their music, had thought of 
Stuart Newbolt for the last few minutes. 

He must have slipped away from his comfortabled 
lounge and crossed the room when they were not 
looking. Possibly the siesta had been only a ruse. 
For the man who stood over them was no longer 
the self-contained man of the world, the somewhat 
apathetic Maecenas, whose dominant idea was never 
to allow himself to degenerate into vulgar excite- 
ment. It was as if a mask had suddenly fallen 
from the Roman-like face, for fire flashed from his 
eyes, and his features were distorted not only with 
anger but with a sudden and violent rage. 

“You forget it is growing late,” he said sternly 
to his daughter, keeping his eye on her while she 
rose and went slowly towards the door, for she was 
overstrung and never dreamt of resisting his will. 

Then finding himself alone with her lover he 
raved like one of unsound mind. 


CHAPTER IV. 


STUART NEWBOLT SPEAKS HIS MIND. 

Stephen Dewe had been taken by surprise. He 
had spoken out though he had scarcely meant to 
do so. In a snoment he had told Zina what was 
passing in his heart, though immediately afterwards 
he was inclined to blame himself for impulsiveness. 
He was of a high, fastidious spirit, liable to jealousy 
because it was sensitive, yet too proud to admit 
the jealousy even to itself. To see the woman he 
loved constantly surrounded by other men who 
admired her, to have a horror 'of the sort of influ- 
ence to which she was continually subjected, and 
yet to submit patiently to the role of waiting for 
the crumbs of sympathy which she might choose 
to fling to him as to a faithful dog, was becoming 
odious to him. Years ago he had taken a vow 
against marriage, but he had set himself to save her 
from being one of those “ book-worm sort of women, ” 
who according to him — a lover of painting and 
music — had no soft places in their hearts for chil- 


Stuart New bo It speaks his Mind, 


2 9 


dren, no tenderness for the weaknesses 4>f their 
own sex, and no power of returning the affection 
of the men who loved them. He had secretly tri- 
umphed when he saw her softening under the 
influence of Mary Carruthers, but it was usual to 
him to reconnoitre the ground before he brought up 
his forces. 

His heart leaped within him even at the thought 
of winning the woman, whom so many other men 
had failed to win, and whom he had watched 
develop from the girl, fragile and willowy in her 
teens, to the woman upright as a palm, superb, 
apparently reserved and somewhat cold to outsiders. 
He had not been sure that he approved her father’s 
system of education, and yet for some years he had 
worshipped her as one of the “blessed Damosels," 
so long shut in behind the golden bars of their 
homes, and now sharing the educational advantages 
of their brothers. 

Stuart Newbolt had perceived from the first that 
the reform in women’s education was one which 
would go down to the roots of our social and 
domestic life. He had aimed at making his daughter 
ambitious, and had allowed her but one accom- 
plishment, and that she had studied thoroughly at 
Rome and Florence, as well as in the Slade School 
in London. Whereas Stephen had covered yards 
and yards of canvas, and thrown up one art for 
another in disgust at his own futility, Zina Newbolt 
had toiled in silence and had little to shew as a 
result. 

A friendship, which at first had been purely Pla- 
tonic, had grown up by slow degrees between the 
woman who was now six-and-twenty, and the man 
who — looking younger than he was — had just 
entered his thirty-first year. That Zina should have 
encouraged him, seemed to her more calculating 
father one of those inexplicable riddles which the 


30 


A Waking . 


unsolved mystery of a woman’s nature is continu- 
ally offering to the men who believe themselves to 
be experienced students of life. He blamed himself 
now for not having anticipated this terrible ending ; 
he told himself he might have foreseen that when 
he attempted to reverse the proper order of things, 
Nature, outraged, would take her revenge. And the 
motherless daughter, debarred from the proper out- 
lets for her affection; the daughter whom he had 
so moulded by his teaching that he intended her to 
combine the attractions of both sexes — the strength 
and reason of the man with the fascinations of the 
woman — had fallen into the snare of Titania, and 
become enamoured of an — ass. Something of this 
sort he said in his ravings, reproaching Dewe with 
being a dandy and a dilettante — a fool who had 
not even the manliness of a Bottom, but who prided 
himself on his yellow moustachios, his handsome 
face, and the devices of his tailor. He hinted with 
withering contempt that his daughter had made the 
same mistake which was made by so many men 
of sense, in imagining that beauty of mind must 
necessarily be allied to that of mere external form. 
He reminded the astonished suitor that society might 
be divided, as Goethe had divided it, into the strong 
men who lead it, the knaves who temporise, and 
the feeble hangers-on ; and that he, Stephen Dewe 
— a fellow who had changed his profession from 
time to time and decided on nothing — was one of 
the feeblest of hangers-on. A hanger-on who had 
not even sufficient industry to succeed in the pro- 
fession of music, but only knew how to make tender 
improvisings on the piano, to steal away a woman’s 
heart. 

The younger man’s face was white as ashes, but 
he stood quite still, only moving once, to close the 
door behind him, while, statue-like, he listened to 
the angry torrent of words, never once removing 


Stuart Newbolt speaks his Mind, 


3i 


his eyes from Stuart Newbolt’s face. These eyes, 
which were generally of a dreamy blue, had taken 
a . deeper tint under the influence of emotion, and 
glittered like steel. He made no attempt to defend 
himself, and only once it crossed his mind to wish 
that the slight tyranny in Zina’s manner— a man- 
ner which intoxicated him — had not come uppermost 
to his memory, bearing a faint resemblance to the 
overbearing savagery so suddenly revealed in her 
father. Love had exercised its usual power of ex- 
orcisim— leaving little scope for any other passion 
— and, though in the midst of his astonishment he 
found himself wandering off into one of his specu- 
lations as to the very small differences which really 
existed between the civilised and uncivilised man, 
and the slight varnish supplied by the culture of 
generations, which was after all but the merest 
crust over the fire and smoke beneath it — he was 
tempted to no furious rejoinder. 

Reserve was one of the qualities which he had 
in common with the woman he loved. And when 
Stuart Newbolt (making an attempt to repress the 
loud and harsh tones into which he, whose caprices 
were so seldom thwarted, had been betrayed to his 
own shame) demanded in the softer tones habitual 
to him on what grounds he dared to propose him- 
self as a possible future husband for such a woman 
as Zina, he twice essayed to speak, and twice found 
that the words died away in his throat. 

“ Shall I ring for a glass of water ? ” asked his 
host, as he impatiently paced the room. 

And still the curse of silence seemed to have fal- 
len on Stephen. He was a man rather given to 
canvassing the possibilities of his future. Often and 
often had he canvassed his opportunities with Zina, 
and yet there had been nothing offensive or egotis- 
tical in his self-consciousness; he was rather inclined 
to run himself down, assessing the capital of his 


32 


A Waking . 


mental stock at the lowest possible figure. No one 
knew better than he did that the gifts which lead 
to a greatness likely to be recognised by a man’s 
contemporaries had not fallen to his share. Neither 
would his pride allow him to plead that he had a 
little private property, for — the introspective faculty 
being strong in his case — he was perfectly well 
aware that it was the possession of this private pro- 
perty which had proved his greatest snare. He 
only answered in a low tone, when at last he could 
control his voice, 

“ I believe you must have taken leave of your 
senses. I should be a coward to endure such 
violence from any other man, but for Zina’s sake — ” 

He was interrupted once more. 

“Don’t mention that name,” said Stuart Newbolt 
with emphasis, as once more he turned and faced 
him. “You must never see my daughter again.” 

His eyeballs were still injected with blood, but 
it struck Stephen at once that his manner had greatly 
changed. His voice had become once more low and 
distinct as he motioned Stephen to a chair, and 
sat down with something of his old dignity on 
another. 

“You are right. I am not well, and this sudden 
discovery was too much for me. Let us discuss this 
thing calmly.” And then he said, with something 
of an unholy chuckle, laying his hand familiarly 
upon the other’s shoulder, “I never before ventured 
to intrude upon such a delicate subject as your 
marriage. But let me give you some advice. I saw 
you paying attention the other day to that pretty 
little heiress, Laura Newton. The girl is head over 
ears in love with you ; there will be no difficulty on 
her side. Now don’t throw her over for a magnifi- 
cent-looking person like my daughter, who will not 
have a penny from me if she marries you. Don’t 
go forgetting Laura Newton— the other little girl— 


Stuart New dolt speaks his Mind. 


33 


she is your real triumph, and she is a lovely little 
creature, perfect whether in turquoise blue, or in 
porphyrian green, and ready to afford any number 
of toilettes.” 

Stephen winced at this chaffing tone. It suited 
Stuart Newbolt even less than his passionate rage, 
and the rapid alternation from one style of address 
to the other, without any “ middle distance” to 
blend them together, was startling and bewildering. 

The little heiress who could not succeed in hid- 
ing her infatuation for Stephen Dewe was fragile 
and delicate in constitution as in artistic tastes. 
Stephen’s instinct was to defend her and protect 
her from her own weaknesses; but in a certain 
sense he despised her and could not bear to hear 
her compared to his goddess Egeria, the sight of 
whom might inspire a poet to make sonnets, an 
artist to paint pictures, or a musician to write music. 
All these varying forms of incense he had offered 
secretly at Zina’s shrine, and he could not believe 
that Mr. Newbolt was as ignorant as he pretended 
to be of these years of devotion. He contented 
himself with moving his hand in a deprecating way, 
as in the same light mocking tone Stuart Newbolt 
continued — 

“ My daughter is another matter — are you not 
afraid? She is capable, for aught you know, of 
good or evil to any extent. A splendid match 
should be hers. For my own part the reason why 
I have so long consented to her remaining single 
is because I have not yet seen the man, titled or 
millionaire, whom I should consider to be good 
enough for her.” 

By this time the younger man realised that the 
‘chaff’ was taking a form with which it would be 
difficult to contend. No open enemy was worse 
than a mocker. The beads of perspiration stood on 
his brow. He was not to be easily daunted, or 


34 


A Waking . 


reasoned with, as if he were a child to be shaken 
out of a passing fancy. But there were times when 
Zina’s father alarmed him— times when he was 
inclined to believe the strange stories which were 
afloat as to a sort of devilry in the family. What 
sort of man was this who seemed to enjoy giving 
swordthrusts and putting another into confusion by 
reminding him of his disabilities? 

“ It would be a pity if your talents were allowed 
to rust unused,” sneered Newbolt, “but there are 
plenty of other people to appreciate them ; they 
will enable you to occupy a creditable position as 
a drawing-room knight.” 

The flush deepened on Stephen’s face. “Your 
daughter — ” he began, but the words were taken 
out of his mouth. 

“Allow me to hear of my daughter’s feelings 
from her own lips; it is difficult for me to believe 
she has been more communicative to you than to me.” 

The perspiration again stood on the younger 
man’s face. The difficulty of controlling himself 
was great, but he reminded himself that he had 
had his 'good time’ for a few blissful seconds of 
that chequered evening. Yet the hide of the 
rhinoceros had seemed as if it would be a gift 
worth having, as he had faced the storm of shot 
with which he had been pounded since. 

“ If that is your last word I have only to wait,” 
he said coldly as he rose to leave the room. 

And then it was Stuart Newbolt’s turn to lock 
himself in his study, and sink exhausted on the 
sofa. He had sent away the man, and he thought — 
with a repetition of the disagreeable chuckle which 
was by no means natural to him — of the bitter in- 
sults which he had forced him to swallow with 
writhing lips. But the woman had still to be dealt 
with and she had alarmed him lately. 


CHAPTER V. 


ZINA HAS IDEAS OF HER OWN. 

Stuart Newbolt had honestly believed that he was 
doing the best for his only child in educating her 
out of superstition and the weak womanly emotions 
which he had deliberately discouraged, bringingher 
up to secularism and what he called ‘common-sense’ 
from her infancy. Accomplishments were out of 
court, but his first cause for alarm had been in her 
early girlhood when he found that she was strongly 
moved by both music and painting; that the same 
emotional temperament which made her love the 
study of Shelley led her to condemn both Pope and 
Dryden, and that — later on — the pathos and finish 
of young Dewe’s songs could stir her into emotion, 
and wake her into feelings of which — if her father 
could have moulded her completely — she never should 
have known the existence. Her ideals and enthu- 
siasms were continually surprising him, and it was 
no comfort to him to be compelled to look upon 
them as a part of the hereditary weakness of her 


36 


A Waking. 


emotional womanhood. He made excuses for her; 
but there were times when in spite of her dignified 
manners, and proud reserve amongst strangers, he 
thought her wanting in judgment. 

Her obstinacy had vexed him more than once 
lately ; as when in her liking for Mary Carruthers, 
and her determination in choosing her for her most 
intimate friend, she had given one of the first signs 
of an independent will, and of the struggle which 
might be waged in the future between his own 
determination and that of an originally fine and 
fervid nature which had more or less taken the 
impress of his. 

She had from the first taken a violent fancy to 
a woman whose life seemed to be led on quite 
another plane of existence from that of all the other 
people whom she was accustomed to meet. Mary 
was like a dweller in another planet. She had talked 
a little sadly during their last interview, but in 
reality the quaint motherly woman was singularly 
free from that curse of the century, that habit of 
melancholy rhapsody which she left to the professor. 
She refused to look long on the dark side of things. 

“ I take it all higher , ” as she once said mysteri- 
ously to Zina. “ If one pretends to be a Christian one 
must not be over-careful, and then it is astonishing 
the openings which come in answer to prayer?” 

Miss Newbolt had smiled a little patronisingly ; 
she thought of quoting Huxley, and then desisted. 
This new experience of a woman making herself 
happy when she had only — as Zina phrased it — 
“ twopence in her pocket,” was piquant and original, 
and so was the thought of a helpless little body 
like Mary fighting so hard to wrest fortune and hap- 
piness for those whom she loved. 

Nothing had persuaded Zina to abandon her friend, 
not even her father’s sneers. In vain had he quoted 
Dr. Johnson, who never wished to meet a fool in 


Zina has Ideas of her own . 37 

Heaven, adding drily that “ the majority of people 
who thought themselves safe for it were fools, and 
Mrs. Carruthers as great a fool as the rest.” She 
had only vehemently defended Mary from the 
sweeping aspersion of foolishness. 

So long as the purveyor for the “Family Sym- 
pathiser” had not appeared at any of Stuart New- 
bolt s dinner-parties — to which, as he explained, he 
might admit a few lions, but no jackals or hyenas, 
and certainly no donkeys — he had managed to treat 
his daughter’s friendship for Mrs. Carruthers as a 
matter of supreme indifference. Still that friendship 
was somewhat ominous as betokening a weakness 
of sex. A straw might show in which way the 
wind sat, and it would be painful if Zina’s tastes, which 
were generally good, should betoken the inconsistency 
which he considered to be characteristic of women. 

It was possible she might show the same obstinate 
determination in the case of this musician. 

An eager desire to know the worst and settle the 
question once for all tormented Stuart Newbolt 
when he determined, before he slept that night, to 
summon his daughter and let her know that he 
wished this acquaintance to be discontinued. He 
had thought it possible he should have to argue 
with her, but he had not counted on the steady 
temerity of her opposition. Seating herself on one 
of the easiest chairs, and leaning back against the 
soft cushions, with no signs of agitation or of haste, 
she asserted her intention of never giving up Ste- 
phen Dewe. 

“You need not trouble yourself to be annoyed 
about it — we can wait — I am in no hurry to be 
married,” she said in her melodious voice, even 
ending with a little feugh. 

Her character inclined to gratitude, and she had 
no intention of vexing her father. To live her life 
as she was living it, with all the resources of wealth 


A Waking ; 


38 

at her command — wealth which did not bore her — to 
have just the amount of amusement which she enjoyed, 
to associate occasionally with people of world-wide 
reputation, and to keep Stephen as a delightful 
accessory to the other pleasures of existence, without 
any thought of separating herself from her father — 
apparently this was her programme. 

It seemed to Stuart Newbolt childish and weak. 
He lost his patience as he had lost it before. 

“ Anyone might infer from your attitude that you 
were absurdly in love with this apology for a man,” 
he said in his most sarcastic tones,” but how often 
have I told you what it means to be in love. It 
means to make a fool of yourself — to expect things 
from life which you cannot possibly get — Take the 
experiences of nineteen out of every twenty girls 
who marry for what they call — love. Expect nothing, 
and be properly matter of fact — treat marriage like 
every other business contract — and you will save 
yourself from heart-rendings and despair — the lot 
of most sentimental weaklings, who lay up for 
themselves a heritage of disgust and wretchedness. ” 

She did not answer. There seemed to be nothing 
for her to say, and she was evidently determined 
not to be drawn into a discussion. 

Her silence and something in the expression of 
her face irritated him. “If you think I am to be 
turned from my resolution by the foolish caprice of 
a woman, you are mistaken, ” he cried with an oath, 
dashing his hand on the table before him with such 
vehemence that a delicate specimen of Viennese 
china fell on the parquet floor, and broke into 
fragments. 

Zina rose, and made as if she would have picked 
up some of the largest pieces. Then — as if she had 
changed her purpose, she advanced slowly towards 
him, and looked straight into his eyes. Her own 
were dark almost to blackness, and there was 


Zina has Ideas of her own. 


39 


something in their expression which made him 
recognise how he had broken in that moment of 
fury something more valuable than the Viennese 
vase. 

“ The vase can be put together with china cement 
and will be almost as valuable to the dealers, it 
would be a good thing if other fractures were 
always as easily mended ” she remarked in her 
coldest way, “let us bid each other good night.” 

The tone was no longer filial; it was imperative 
as his own. He had heard her use it once or twice 
in her life when some young suppliant for her 
favour had to be put in his proper place, or when 
some fulsome compliment from another had roused 
her indignation. On those occasions he had admired 
her for it, wondering a little at the stateliness into 
which she had grown, but feeling amused by her 
queenly graciousness, for she had spoken in her usual 
quiet way and dismissed them in a manner which 
was almost friendly. Did she think he was to be 
patronised in the same regal fashion? — he who was 
used to rule everyone, but who had always guessed 
that the time might come when their wills would 
be in collision. Stuart Newbolt felt at that moment 
as if he had foreknown the interview, or as if it 
had taken place in some previous state of existence, 
so familiar did it seem to him with all its details. 
He had called Dewe an ass, but he saw now that 
he had been the fool in not perceiving the incon- 
gruity between the actual and potential position occupied 
in his house by this queenly woman. Had he not 
educated her himself to be his match in philosophy 
and logic; had he not rejoiced when he had found 
her ready to reason that if her father made researches 
it should be a part of her duty to keep up with 
them, that she might never be behind in filial sym- 
pathies ? 

She was a bit of a genius and he had sometimes 


40 


A Waking. 


comforted himself by the thought of the immea- 
surable distance there would be between her and 
the ordinary young men she met in society. She 
was unfortunately something of a femme incomprise ; 
but was it possible that she had also her distinct 
individuality, and had he been wrong when he prided 
himself on her freedom from sentimental maladies? 

“ Father,” she repeated, in that chilling voice which 
she had sometimes used when she had wished to 
keep up her own dignity, “let us understand each 
other once for all before we part, and then 
we will not allude to this subject again. I am in 
no hurry to be married, but, sooner or later, I mean 
to marry — Stephen Dewe. ” 

For a minute or two they regarded each other 
in silence. 

He, too, had the blankest stare for the people 
whom he meant to cut, but this stare in no wise 
affected his daughter. He failed to control her 
with the power of his eye. His heart began beating 
as Dewe’s had beaten a few minutes before, but he 
was used to managing women, and smiled ironically. 

“You say that you have made up your mind,” 
he responded with that smile; “do you not think it 
possible that I may make up mine also?” The 
exasperating influence of her words, her looks, and 
her tones were by degrees breaking down that 
self-control on which he prided himself. He betrayed 
himself by the unwonted flushing of his face, and by 
the unusual touch of asperity in his irony as he added, 
“ I might have known that you had some idealistic 
prospect, when you refused offer after offer, and 
declared your intention of remaining with your father — 
always that with you women, you know — some 
pet little castle in the air, with no foundation in 
reality ! ” 

“ And what is your prospect for me, ask yourself — 
if you wish me to argue like a reasonable being. 


Zina has Ideas of her own . 


4i 


You do not look on to the end. Ask yourself if 
the rich or ^iccessful man whom you would wish 
me to marry despite want of love on my part, 
would not learn to hate me, or if I should not learn 
to hate him, and if that would be the successful 
climax, as it is of so many marriages in respectable 
and fashionable London? ” 

The beating of his heart was becoming alarming; 
it suggested the possibility of physical disease. Years 
before, a doctor had warned him that mental excite- 
ment might be disastrous in his case. 

It was important to end the interview. 

“What is the use,” he said, with a deprecating 
smile, “ of putting yourself in a towering passion 
instead of being thankful — for having escaped a 
danger — a danger which was becoming a serious 
one? Theory may do very well for you; action 
fortunately, rests with me ; and from this day I shall 
forbid young Dewe my house.” 

He had saved his dignity, and she had also saved 
hers, as she left the room with a grace which few 
women could have equalled. There was an elo- 
quence in the poise of her head and in every line 
of her back, which he could not help admiring, as 
he characteristically compared it to that of Sarah 
Bernhardt, or of Ristori in her young days, when 
she had been at her best. There was more re- 
monstrance in his daughter’s movements as she 
silently left the room than there would have been 
in rude unmeaning speech. 

He caught himself thinking of the limitations of 
human language, and of the abysses of solitariness 
between himself and this his nearest and dearest 
relation — abysses not to be bridged over by words — 
whilst that musician fellow had probably a means of 
communicating with her which could find out the more 
sensitive places in her nature. What madness to 
have allowed him this means of communication, 


42 


A Waking . 


giving him the pull over himself, for years which 
could never be recalled! Who could tell how far 
the mischief might have gone? The furniture of the 
room swam before his eyes, and he sank again 
exhausted into his arm-chair. 

He was of a nature thoroughly to enjoy his 
existence, and it required some great and startling 
blow like the present to rouse him into consideration. 
His tendency was to let his affairs drift on as they 
might, trusting that nothing would go very wrong 
or so wrong that an energetic effort could not 
remedy them at last. He could never have given 
utterance to Metternich’s reflection that after him 
the deluge might come, but he always had a vague 
impression that such might be the case. It seemed, 
however, now, that the deluge might come at once, 
and he perceived the necessity for rallying his powers 
to meet it 


CHAPTER VL 


A SUDDEN ILLNESS. 

On the next day Stuart Newbolt was ailing, and 
his illness seemed to put his daughter seriously in 
the wrong. He had realised for the first time that 
when she had made up her mind on a subject she 
was not at all likely to give way, and it even 
occurred to him as possible that she might have 
also inherited strong temper from him, as well as 
a will which was unbending as iron. The subject of 
heredity became perplexing, not to say mortifying, 
when viewed in this fashion. That a woman, whom 
he had moulded and whom he had always hoped 
to dominate by his own personality, should have 
this force and fire about her was altogether annoy- 
ing. He felt he had a right to be angry with her. 

He had been so long accustomed to be the only 
person to be considered, that he had the appearance 
of pardoning her even when he made her suffer. 

“ Yes, I am altogether out of sorts, * he said, 
when he returned in the afternoon earlier than usual 


44 


A Waking . 


from his club, and it was impossible for her not to 
be struck by his extraordinary pallor, or not to be 
alarmed when she saw that he shivered as though 
under the influence of fever. 

He refused to summon medical aid, but did not 
interfere with her when she insisted on putting ofl 
the guests who had been invited for the following 
week. In the tete-a-tetes which ensued, it struck her 
more forcibly than it had done before, that he insisted 
on treating her as if she were a girl — a big child — 
and that the intercourse between them was of a 
very curious kind indeed. 

Her womanly intuition was no longer at fault ; 
it read the true meaning of the selfish interdict and 
threw a new light on a position which was one of 
subjugation, making her revolt from the idea of 
wearing a yoke. She had spoken out once for all, 
but she determined to say no more. A sense of 
filial duty restrained her from making things un- 
comfortable now that her father was not well. But 
she no longer smiled or bubbled over with quiet 
mirth, when her father made his dry and somewhat 
cynical jokes, and he — in his turn — ceased to com- 
pliment her on her pertinent ideas, and opportune 
answers. 

In his secret heart he accused her of not being 
at all amusing, and resented the fact that her 
accustomed reticence subsided at last into absolute 
silence. 

The old habit of bowing to his authority remained, 
and this habit was so strong that the utmost resolu- 
tion she could summon ended in an acknowledgment 
of the impossibility of acting openly against him. 

She said to herself, “ His opposition may keep me 
unmarried as long as it is my duty to remain with 
him, but he can never force me to marry anyone 
else. w 

In accordance with this resolution she had written 


A sudden Illness. 


45 


to Stephen Dewe swearing faithfulness, but no one 
knew better than she did how oddly her letter must 
read. “I shall love you always, always — as long 
as life can last, and afterwards if I can — if there is 
any future in which we can meet.” Yet what was 
it she could promise — the faint chance of meeting 
again in an indefinite future? 

Was there any woman in whom she could con- 
fide? She thought of Mary Carruthers, but Mary 
had her own burdens, and she would inflict no more 
upon her. Her father had bidden her to select 
Eva Capem as her greatest friend. But though Eva 
prided herself on her conversational aplomb, and 
was never easily worsted in society, capping the 
men’s remarks with sharp little sayings of her own, 
no one knew better than Zina how poor and how 
shallow were her counsels to those of her own sex. 
Eva, for all her appearance of youth, was a couple 
of years the elder of the two, and prided herself 
on her thorough emancipation when, a short time 
before, she had married a man who seldom inter- 
fered with her, and who had both riches and repu- 
tation. It had been a joke between the two women 
that she would make a capital chaperon for her 
guardian’s daughter when she was married. And 
Eva, who dearly loved a position of importance, and 
who had some fancied scores to pay off in the past, 
had already assumed the patronising airs of a some- 
what jaunty matronhood. 

Could it be possible to tell her? Did not Zina 
know already, that weeks ago her anger had nearly 
suffocated her when she had but a slight suspicion 
of the actual fact? No, her heart told her she 
had no ally, hut possibly an enemy, in Eva 
Capern, whose suspicions were to be eluded, and 
whose observations were to be drawn away from 
the dangerous track. The best hope would be that 
Mrs. Capern had forgotten all about the supposed 


4 6 


A Waking. 


imprudence, and that her thoughts would be engross- 
ed with her own affairs. 

Meanwhile, day by day, Zina wrestled not only 
with her loneliness but with an all-abiding pain. 
She determined not to be conquered by it. If the 
world was ruled by two masters, pain and pleasure, 
she saw no reason why she should be worsted by 
the first. She fought the battle with her natural 
despondency. 

“If you are determined not to think of a thing, 
you do not,” she said to herself, with a desperate 
resolution to fall back on prose, and not to surrender 
the citadel of her heart to the false-poetic. 

She was not one of the people who could drift 
with circumstances or allow fate to decide for her. 
She had learnt from Mary Carruthers to ask always 
“What is right to do?” From Mary too, she had 
learnt to try to conquer the habit of allowing herself 
to become restless or brooding — a habit to which 
she was inclined by nature. 

Just now she would not allow herself to look 
on to the future, or to think that her ideal of a 
perfect life would be shadowed, if, after all, she 
should be called upon to relinquish the hope of a 
great passion, and to look upon her existence as a 
compromise. Perhaps when the years passed on 
Stephen Dewe would forget her, or would cease 
to care, and she utterly refused to let herself think 
of the blank which life might be to her if he did 
not care. 

She had tried to be always on the alert, keen to 
perceive her duty, and to act up to it, and she had 
much to do now when her father was out of sorts, 
and when the irritability of illness prevented him 
from being like his usual self. He had evidently 
much to say to her, but the reserve which he had 
always maintained about his private affairs pre- 
vented him from giving scope to his feelings, or 


A sudden Illness . 


47 


relieving his mind of something which seemed to 
weigh upon it. There were days when he was 
wretchedly low, or when he would talk bitterly, 
as she had never heard him talk before. Sometimes 
he would get up and leave the room as if he wished 
to be alone, at others he would take up a book and 
never turn the pages of it; or gaze straight in front 
of him, with a frown which she had never seen 
before on his forehead. 

At such times she would wait upon him with the 
most devoted attention, half irritated with him and 
half vexed with herself when she saw his brow 
drawn together, and shrank from the resentful an- 
tagonism of his face; trying to persuade herself 
that there was no diminution of her loyalty to him, 
though that which had happened had made their 
companionship joyless. 

But now and then a strange idea was gaining 
on her in spite of herself— that there was not 
an inch of common ground between them. The 
altruism at which she aimed was difficult to live 
up to; she demanded too high a standard from others 
as well as herself; and there were times when the 
faults of others distressed her, and she found it dif- 
ficult to forgive them. 

The difference of temperament, which is so much 
worse than any difference of opinion, had always 
existed as a fatal barrier between herself and her 
father, making her shy and reticent; but it seemed 
to be only lately that she was conscious of an aver- 
sion, not so much to the man himself, as to his 
modes of thinking, his moods and habits. 

The doctors were summoned at last, and dis- 
coursed much of the vibrations of the nerves, jtnd of 
the palpitations of the heart. But their discourses 
did not seem to throw much light upon the matter. 
And Zina, in her nervous mood, shrank from the 
apartment in which her father sat, immovable, like 


48 


A Waking. 


a carved idol set up in the middle of the room to 
be worshipped, a fetish which did not take the 
trouble to turn its head. She began by degrees to 
have a horror of the room with its pictures, books, 
statues, and china, and to feel that there was 
something magnificent and solemn, but almost 
uncanny in the spectacle of this figure — with its grey 
and luminous eyes, which were the only sign of life 
about it — not rising, but indicating its wants with 
its finger. 

And by degrees her bravery flagged. Naturally 
religious and denied the proper outlets for religion, 
she was afraid of becoming superstitious. Powers 
inimical seemed to be around her. She was con- 
scious of them, they weighed upon her. 

She was haunted by the idea, vague but importun- 
ate, that her father had a sense of property in her, 
and that it was less on account of any love he 
might feel for her than on account of this feeling 
of proprietorship, that he was so loath, during the 
days of his illness, to let her out of his sight. He 
prided himself on the fact that he had taught her 
to think, and now she seemed to be haunted by 
the malady of thought. “ It is thought, and thought 
only, which distinguishes human beings from brutes, 
and creates the barriers between right and wrong, ” 
he had often said to her. 

But in the days of her confinement to the sick 
room she did not find herself able to pick and 
choose her thoughts. When alone in her own 
apartment she would walk up and down, up and 
down, thinking and thinking till her head seemed 
to go round. 

Stephen Dewe had written again to her, reproaching 
her for her too ready submission to her father’s 
wishes. But she had nothing to answer to Stephen. 
Her ideas of marriage were not the ideas of 
an untrained girl; her acquaintance with literature, 


A sudden Illness. 


49 


and her honesty in dealing with herself, forbade her 
to entertain the thought of battling with a poverty 
which her tastes and her training had by no means 
fitted her to bear. She could not answer her lover 
in his own vein. 


CHAPTER VTL 


UNEXPECTED GOSSIP. 

The next few weeks were passed in a state of 
vexed discomfort, against which Zina struggledfeebly, 
with a vague craving and restlessness which had 
been before unknown to her. 

There were days when Stuart Newbolt seemed to 
be a little better, but few and fewer confidences 
passed between him and his daughter. Sometimes 
for an hour or two he would bury himself in his 
papers, but the examination of these documents 
only served to make him more irritable. Doubts 
and perplexities generally assailed him in the twi- 
light hour, and at this time his nervous suspicions 
would be visited upon Zina. All this exhibition of 
pessimism was so new in the man that the daughter 
was startled by it, her own dread of being repulsed 
making it more and more difficult for her to speak her 
mind openly to him. Stephen continued to write, his 
tone being naturally one of complaint, and Zina — quick 
to reproach herself — accused herself of behaving not 


Unexpected Gossip. 


5i 


quite honourably to him. It would have been per- 
haps better and fairer, she told herself, in her depres- 
sion, to have dismissed his suit altogether, leaving 
no element of uncertainty in his life. 

Her reticence did not please the invalid. “I don’t 
want a woman in extremes — either a dunce or a 
blue-stocking,” he had been wont to say complain- 
ingly; “and girls are always in extremes. You are 
no exception to the rule. When I want to be 
amused, you are cold as marble.” 

And she did not answer him according to his 
humour. She was not like most women, finding 
her ready relief in letting off a stream of angry 
words ; she was chary of the reckless speech which 
some use as a safety valve. 

If only she could have been let alone without 
interference from meddlesome outsiders! But Eva 
Capern, whose earthly ideas formed a powerful 
counterpoise to her attractions, was constantly flit- 
ting backwards and forwards to the house, deluging 
her with questions, or making suggestions which 
only increased her perplexity. Mrs. Capern, from 
whom Zina shrank, had found it amusing enough 
to act as adviser to her guardian’s daughter, whose 
style of beauty formed a remarkable contrast to her 
own. But the two had never been friends, and the 
worldly little chaperon had been ready, from the first, 
to complain that Zina never seemed to be properly 
touched by the admiration of others, but treated it 
as if she had had too much of it, and as if it wor- 
ried and annoyed her. 

Her complaints now were that Zina was wasting 
her time in securing one of the most brilliant matches 
of the season, and that she had already refused the 
most eligible partis. “You know it is nonsense for 
you to talk, but you cannot go unmarried for ever , 
and now you are losing your opportunities as you 
always do lose them. Only the other day Sir James 


52 


A Waking. 


Maddox was inquiring an xiously about you. I know 
that he has left his card half-a-dozen times at the 
house, but all that makes no difference to you — you 
strange girl. I believe you never even see your 
cards.” 

Zina did not hear her. Experience had taught 
her not to discuss these questions with Eva. Mar- 
riage without love seemed to her a profanation, but 
more than once when she had tried to say so, sharp 
altercation had followed. She was occupied with 
her own thoughts, but the expression of her face 
was tragic, and contrasted strangely with her usual 
composure of manner. 

“You are always in a brown-study, and I dont’ 
understand,” Mrs. Capern went on excitedly, “how- 
ever you can immure yourself like this, losing your 
complexion in a sick-room : vour father is the last 
man to require such a sacrifice ; he has too much 
common-sense, and he spoke to me before his illness 
about this very subject of Sir James Maddox. It is 
not a question ot very serious illness ; you have a 
trained nurse already, and why should you continue 
to play the part of a nurse? You are not fitted for 
it. You bury yourself, shut yourself up in the dark, 
and then wonder that you are sad. You must rouse 
yourself, you always did need to rouse yourself.” 

There was a shrillness in her tone which made 
the other woman look up with a start. “ I think it 
is my father who requires to be roused, like the 
poor creature in ‘ Dombey & Son ’, ” she said, dashing 
wildly away from the unwelcome subject of her 
prospects in marriage, thankful that she had 
been able to keep her secret to herself, and that 
Mrs. Capern knew nothing of the late episode with 
the objectionable Stephen Dewe. “ My father makes 
me anxious. I will try to recollect the sine qua non 
— that he must be roused.” 

“I am sure you have nothing to complain 


53 


Unexpected Gossip . 

of with such a brilliant future before you, if only 
you knew how to make the best of it,” continued 
Mrs. Capern, unbuttoning her long gloves as if she 
intended to make a further stay in a house which 
she considered to be almost her own. “ Your father 
will soon be well ; everyone is seedy at times — but, 
thank Heaven, he will soon be well enough to exert 
his authority, and to look after his own interests, which 
seem to me to need it terribly. Everyone takes 
advantage when a man, who is as popular as he is, 
is lain aside. ” Zina raised her head and looked at her. 

The answering look was altogether so light-hearted 
that one might have supposed there was no such 
thing as a real sorrow in the world to see the plea- 
sant self-assurance of this butterfly of fashion. But 
her pleasantries were felt to be unseasonable jusl 
then, and Zina replied coldly, with a haughtiness 
which was characteristic, “ I have made up my mind 
never to obey any arbitrary injunctions from my 
father or anyone else, and this is a question which, 
as I have told you a thousand times, I refuse to 
discuss with anyone.” 

“ Don’t you be bitter. What do you know about 
it?” queried Mrs. Capern, with a persistence which 
showed a grim absence of tact as she brought her 
back to the point ; “ it seems to me you are perfectly 
demented. If you have told me this a thousand 
times, how often have I told you that I utterly 
despise that idiotic class of women which insists on 
ignoring plain facts which are straight before theii 
eyes. Now you have got to live in the world, and 
have everything as you have been used to it — every- 
thing of the best — you know everyone likes the 
best — and the question is, how you will live in it, it 
all the things they say are true, by-and-by?” 

She nodded as if to emphasize her question, and 
gazed impatiently at Zina, who still sat motionless, 
with her arms crossed before her, wondering on the 


54 


A Waking , . 


one hand at the sort of daring which made discom- 
fiture, and all attempts at arresting conversation, 
utterly impossible in Eva’s case; perplexed on the 
other by what seemed to be the extraordinary irrel- 
evance of the question. 

She turned her beautiful eyes inquiringly upon 
Mrs. Capern, who answered comically, and almost 
childishly, “ Now do not make the worst of it. Oh, 

I give you my solemn assurance that I have nothing 
to do with it; but since your father has been ill the 
gossips do not hesitate to circulate the most odious 
scandals at his expense. Of course they are all 
pure fabrications, and I don’t believe a word of 
them, but they have rummaged up a lot of cock- 
and-a-bull tales about his youth, and say that he 
has eaten up his fortune and is loaded with debt. 
Some of them do not hesitate to add that he is 
shamming illness, and that the key of the whole 
domestic situation is that he wishes to marry his 
daughter to some old fellow who has millions — a 
Jew, I think they say — and that the daughter is 
refractory. Now you have the whole of it.” 

Zina looked at her with her eyes flashing; there 
was a hardness in her face, and she was positively 
trembling. “Oh, I would rather die,” she said “ than 
live on the low level of lives like these! Lives which 
are spent in retailing the most foolish pieces of gos- 
sip — not only foolish, but abominable, and to be 
treated with contempt.” 

“ If I could see him and watch him for myself — 
look into his eyes with my own — I should be able 
to tell whether it were quite such foolish gossip,” 
the other woman was thinking to herself. “Thank 
Heaven he has nothing more to do with my affairs. ” 

But though Eva’s visits were of daily occurence she 
was never allowed to see the invalid, whose nervous 
illness was always aggravated by the presence of 
any intruder. * 


Unexpected Gossip. 


55 


“Mind, I do not vouch for the truth of anything 
I hear, but I thought you would like to be told,” 
she said, as she tripped away, rather satisfied than 
otherwise with the results of her own diplomacy in 
supplying Zina with a reasonable motive for encou- 
raging the attentions of Sir James Maddox — in case, 
as she put it, that anything should happen to her father. 

And Zina, who had been used in the old days to these 
skirmishes between herself and her father’s ward, 
remained in future exasperatingly quiet, in spite of 
the desperate attempts made to shake her resolution. 

She had always resented the fashion in which Mrs. 
Capem — generally clever enough to hit on congenial 
subjects in her guardian’s presence — threw off the 
mask at once when alone with his daughter. 

“ She does not really care for him ; it seems to me 
that no one cares for him, and I myself have been 
disloyal,” thought Zina with a new tendency to self- 
reproach. 

After all, considering that Eva’s visits were so 
constant, it did not do to take to heart the ridiculous 
things she said. Yet her guardian had been good to 
her, he had always been partial to her, and in the 
days before her marriage he had ever been careful 
of her interests, and Zina, in her just indignation, 
wondered how she could stoop to listen to those 
who did not hesitate to vilify and blacken his 
character. 

The gossip should be nothing to her , she told her- 
self as she returned to her father’s couch, remind- 
ing herself of the tragedy in so many lives — of 
happiness wrecked not by great things, but by 
small suspicions and small collisions of will, and 
determining that it should never be so in hers. 

And yet as she watched by him when he slept, 
little things which she had almost forgotten returned 
to her unwilling memory — how someone had told 
her that at the age of twenty her father had gambled 


56 


A Waking. 


away his small inheritance at Monte Carlo, and how, 
after a sleepless night during which he had first of 
all made up his mind to blow out his brains, he had 
re-appeared in the gaming room and won again more 
than he had lost. 

And then there was that story of his marriage— 
Zina’s own name corroborated that tale — how he 
had met her mother abroad, a beautiful orphan 
child, some said of Russian, and others of Polish 
extraction ; and how he had placed her in an English 
school, and educated her himself with a view to 
marrying her when she should be of suitable age. 
She was said to have been good and sweet-tempered 
as well as beautiful; but Zina was not ignorant of 
the gossip which asserted that her father had first 
seen her mother begging her bread at the roadside ; 
and that when he found it impossible for her, 
after the slight education he had given her, to 
shine in cultivated society, he afterwards mal- 
treated her. 

Zina could herself remember some stormy scenes 
in her childhood, and could believe that her father’s 
thirst for distinction, and his desire for personal 
aggrandizement, might have caused him to treat 
her mother with cruelty. If so, such behaviour 
would be difficult to forgive. 

Hitherto she had been too filial, with her sense 
of kinship too strong to allow her to put anything 
but the best construction on these episodes of the 
past ; but now, for the just time, she was ready to 
assume that her mother had been treated with unkind- 
ness and neglect. She had often before had a doubt 
of her father’s judgment, but till now she had never 
been pre-disposed to think him in the wrong. Doubt- 
less, she said to herself, in those scenes which she 
remembered in her childhood, he had been always 
in the wrong. 

The thought steeled her heart against him. The 


Unexpected Gossip . 


57 


attempt to gloss over the difficulty which she was 
conscious of feeling, and to simulate indifference, 
roughened her voice. She stopped with a little 
cough to clear her throat, more than once when she 
was in close attendance on her father. 


CHAPTER VIIL 


MORBID FEARS. 

Stuart Newbolt’s illness increased. The doctors 
did not as yet pronounce it dangerous, but there 
were times when nursing him and seeing him 
suffer affected Zina painfully, and when his spasms 
of agony were repeated in her face. 

She lived through the next few days in a sort of 
nightmare, suffering mentally as well as bodily. 
There were occasions when she seemed no longer to 
think, only to feel — with variable moods like the 
shifting sky — when all her good resolutions were 
put to flight, and when she blamed herself for her fervid 
temperament, trying not to let herself be borne 
along by the emotion of the moment. Emotion, 
as she knew, did not produce action ; experience had 
taught her the distinction. But she was sorely in 
need of a helper. After a time even Mrs. Capern 
had ceased to come, and though Zina hated her 
worldly insinuations and trivial gossip, wincing at 
the accusations so easily made by one who was 


Morlid Fears . 


59 


sharp-witted as well as sharp-tongued, yet the lone- 
liness was not good. 

One night, when her spirits had begun to rise 
because the bulletin which the doctors had issued 
was, “ a little better, ” she began to think she might 
take a longer interval of sleep, lying down in a room 
close to the invalid’s. But towards the morning she was 
roused by the sound of angry speech in the adjoining 
room. The sick man’s voice was raised, loud and 
angry, but the nurse’s tones were lower, pleading, 
and a little frightened. Zina was on her feet in a 
moment, to find her father in a state of half-deli- 
rium, making violent accusations of the nurse — accus- 
ations which were now bordering upon rage, and 
now subsiding into tones of querulous complaint. 
It seemed that the poor woman had taken advan- 
tage of the lonely hours of the night to discourse 
with him on his spiritual state, and to urge on him 
the necessity for seeing a priest. His excitement, 
almost bordering upon frenzy, was out of all pro- 
portion to the unintentional offence. He declared 
that he would have no more nurses: they were all 
in league with the Jesuits, who were death to the 
progress of any nation; he said he would like to 
have all the hypocritical priests strung up in a row 
like the malefactors they were ; and he declared that 
the poor innocent-minded, sermonising nurse was the 
colourless, negative tool of these creatures, thinking 
herself safe for the kingdom of heaven. 

The servants, used to these “ nervous attacks, ” as 
they called them, in their master’s case, crowded round 
him, and it was difficult to prevent him, in his pre- 
sent delirious condition, from warning them to have 
nothing to do with the dull ascetic religion which 
retarded the world’s progress and led men back 
into bondage. 

It was necessary, as the doctor said when he was 
sent for, to “ clear the decks, ” and then Stuart New- 


6o 


A Waking , . 


bolt would have no one near him but his daughter 
— the nurse, angry and hurt, insisting on remaining, 
but cowering away from him in a corner of the room. 

Zina was vexed and ashamed. It had been such 
a comfort to have a trained nurse ; till one had come 
she had felt so horribly incompetent. And, al- 
though the woman had naturally a sense of her 
own importance and this episode had shaken the 
girl’s confidence in her judgment, there was no need 
to quarrel with her, or to doubt her efficiency. 

Still she knew how hopeless it would be to cross 
her father. It was necessary to take the onus of 
the situation on herself, knowing, as she did so, that 
the compromise which she proposed must sound 
inconsistent and tyrannical to the outraged woman’s 
ears, if it were not altogether contrary to her 
printed rules. 

“ Nurse — I hope you will not misunderstand — but 
I think I had better seem to take the nursing into 
my own hands— just for the present — to humour 
him — especially at nights — ” she said in apology. 

There was nothing else to be done, for the nurse 
was unwilling to be sent back to the Home, and 
the patient — who was still sitting up in his bed, the 
beads of sweat standing on his forehead, and his 
face convulsed with anger — became still more excited 
whenever the question was debated of whether a 
second nurse should be summoned from the insti- 
tution. For the first time it occurred to his daughter 
that possibly there was a strain of madness in these 
fits of temper. 

The thought was a terrible one, but it was the 
only hypothesis which seemed adequately to explain 
those other scenes which she looked back upon in 
her childhood. Better, if so, that this illness should 
end fatally than that he should linger to be a curse 
to himself and others, with that taint of madness 
increasing, and an awful future in store for him. 


Morbid Fears . 


61 


She tried to reason herself out of the idea, and 
to comfort herself with the thought that she would 
rather have to deal with an irritable man of this 
sort who cared enough for his fellow-creatures to 
vent his choler on them, than with the cold imper- 
sonal. statue which she had tended lately. But the 
morbidity engendered by a too close attendance in 
the sick-room was already gaining on her, when it 
struck her that she too must have inherited the 
violent temper, and that the feeling of resentment 
with which she had waited upon him at the com- 
mencement of his illness had been unamiable, if 
not altogether unnatural. 

“We cannot either of us plead our natural good- 
ness as an excuse for dispensing with the assistance 
of a priest,” she thought with a little sigh, as she 
made another effort of will to put these distracting 
fancies on one side; and set to work in a practical 
matter-of-fact way to collect the tumblers and plates 
which had accumulated in the room. 

“These had better go down,” she said quietly to 
one of the maids, and then as the nurse stared on, 
crestfallen and offended, she tried to explain: 

“ To-morrow we shall be able to talk it over — perhaps 
we shall then be able to send for some one else, but 
if you prefer to stay you can do so — meanwhile I am 
here to help, and you can tell me what there is to do.” 

“ But, ” gasped the discomfited nurse, “ if anything 
should go wrong with my case — if the doctors should 
blame me — ” 

“ Oh you need not be afraid — nothing will go 
wrong — and you must be sorely in need of rest. 
I have had my sleep — 1 shall be able to go on,” 
said Zina, the awkwardness of the situation making 
her voice strained and cold. 

There was no time for her to explain further, and 
there was nothing to show that her sympathies were 
all with the aggrieved woman, who resented the 


62 


A Waking. 


manner in which she had been treated and was 
inclined to impute the worst motives to every mem- 
ber of the heathenish family. 

Finally the matter was settled, but not for Zina’s 
happiness. It was no comfort to be installed in a 
difficult post, with the sense that the nurse was 
inclined to be aggressive, and that her eyes were 
often fixed on her with a resentful meaning which 
aggravated her nervousness. 


CHAPTER IX. 


OVER- WROUGHT. 

It was an uncomfortable state of things, but one 
which could not be avoided. It was but natural that 
the nurse — who from this time felt as if she had 
lost the glory of the case which had been entrusted 
to her — should be angry and jealous; but her feeling 
of animosity would have been lessened if she 
could have guessed how the daughter of the house 
was shrinking from her task. Zina was too highly- 
strung and too impressionable for the fatigue and 
responsibility, and yet she had been wont to pride 
herself on her physical strength. 

Whenever she flagged, or whenever the doctor 
pleaded with her not to over-exert herself, he found 
her deaf to reason, nerving herself to do her duty. 

After all she was compelled to recognise the truth 
of Eva’s words — that she was not one of those women 
who have a faculty for nursing, and who have a 
sort of enjoyment in patient endurance, and self- 
denying pleasures. 


6 4 


A Waking . 


The long confinement in the sick-room, and the 
days which she had spent in solitude — unconsciously 
chafing and irritating her wound — were beginning 
to tell on a nervous system always sensitive, and 
upon feelings which were exceptionally acute. The 
vivacity of her imagination, ever ready to create 
scenes for her which were not real, was now equally 
ready to conjure up morbid illusions. At one time 
she would be flagellant of herself, calling herself 
unnatural for having brooded over her wrongs, or 
for having made much of that little drama in which 
her insurgency had played so important a part. She 
would tell herself that it was her revolt against 
parental authority, and her unnatural defiance which 
had led to the retribution of this serious illness. At 
such times she would reproach herself for her habit 
of resting with pleasure on the one bright spot ii* 
the present darkness — the thought of her young 
lover’s devotion. It seemed to her a sort of treachery 
to allow herself to think, “ By and bye, when I 
am no longer bound by my duty to my father, I 
shall be able to marry Stephen Dewe." 

She was ashamed of the feeling of hidden joy 
at the bottom of her heart and the sudden lighten- 
ing of her trouble whenever she thought of the 
future. 

Her very horror of the dark thing which seemed 
to be hovering in the house tormented her with 
sensational nervousness — a nervousness aggravated 
by the knowledge that the death of her father would 
set her free to marry the man, to whom she had 
plighted her troth. 

In some curious metaphysical controversies in which 
Stuart Newbolt’s friends had taken part — con- 
troversies which had acted unfortunately on a girl 
of her imaginative nature, she had heard much of 
irresistible impulses and had once herself joined in 
a discussion as to whether in the depths of each of 


Over-wrought. 


65 


us there might not be lurking more selves than one, 
whoseshifting equilibrium might constitute the real self. 

In her present state of mental welfare— a state 
of tension and excitement resulting from the internal 
conflict of the last few weeks, she was thinking in 
a terrified way of thwarted tendencies which might 
revenge themselves on the better ones. 

Later on, she blamed herself for not having sent 
for Mary Carruthers, but it was impossible just then 
to make a confidante of anyone. Probably the 
“ breadwinner of the Carruthers’ family ” did not 
know the full extent of Mr. Newbolt’s illness, and 
the little woman had always been fearful of intruding 
on the magnificence of Chester-Square, whilst Zina, 
humouring her fancy, had made a rule of visiting 
her in the ugly lodgings which were so inexpress- 
ibly florid in their decoration. 

• It was unfortunate; for Mary with her plain com- 
mon-sense, and strong faith in the Unseen would have 
been able to help the girl, who had a strange 
yearning after the Christian ideal, and hated herself 
for the evil thoughts which seemed to hold carnival 
within her during those silent hours in the lonely 
nights when she was forced to take her turn at 
the nursing — crouching in the arm-chair as if she 
were famished for warmth, and looking at the sleeping 
man with a spiritless, nerveless, dejected, and almost 
purposeless gaze. Hateful and distressing thoughts 
they were, in which, for the first time, it was sug- 
gested to her that an engagement prolonged in- 
definitely would probably be never fulfilled, and that 
such a prolonged engagement would be a dragon 
any man, rather likely to hinder him than to promote 
his success in life. Stephen had continued to write 
to her in a passionate, feverish strain, blaming him- 
self on the one hand for the want of self-control 
which had led him to commit himself so suddenly 
by impulsive speech, and declaring on the other 


66 


A Waking . 


that as her father was so ill, and could not know 
what was taking place, there was surely nothing to 
prevent him from coming to her now. Had she 
been a little older, or better able to reason in her 
present distress, she would have seen that he was 
inconsequent, illogical, confessing that* his passion 
had betrayed him and that he must take the conse- 
quences, and yet attempting to force an interview 
now that her father was unable to interfere. 

“ I will write back to him again, and tell him that 
he must wait — we must both wait — even if it be 
for years.” 

“ You know that is nonsense — if anything were to 
happen to your father you would not have to wait.” 

She was certainly ridiculously nervous, for the 
words seemed to be spoken to her by a voice 
from without. 

She stopped her ears so that she should not 
listen to it. 

Till now it seemed to her she had been in a 
childish Elysium, not aware of the coverts in her 
own intelligence in which shy thoughts could hide 
away even from her own ken, and unconscious of 
the moral shock, convulsing her very being, which 
had come upon her in consequence of Mrs. Capern’s 
idle chatter, or of the minute filaments in her memory 
which connected this chatter with her own experience 
in actual fact. Who could tell how far her father 
had been to blame even with regard to her mothers 
early death — a foreigner treated with cruelty by a 
man who was still handsome, young, rich, brilliantly 
gifted, ambitious, and chafing against the tie which 
bound him to a wife supposed to destroy his 
prestige in the society ready to adore him? Who 
could tell whether his system of neglect might 
not have hastened her mother’s death? The subtle 
emotions which actuate men, and the complex moves 
which those men may make, are more difficult as 


Over-wrought. 


67 


we advance in so-called civilisation. Alas for the 
love which he had crushed out in more cases than 
one! Alas for the tender affection she might have 
had from her mother! Alas for the education which 
he had given to herself, to make her subservient to 
his will, never reckoning on the counter-influences 
of circumstances and temperament! 

Just then the sleeper turned in his sleep. He 
opened his eyes and asked for water. It was the 
time to give him his medicine, and, as he looked 
round anxiously and asked for it, there was a wild- 
ness, not only in the large grey eyes themselves, 
but in the whole expression of the face, which struck 
Zina with a sort of conviction that it must be his 
real expression; and that the smiling, half-bantering 
look which he kept up not only in society, but 
generally in the presence of his daughter and his 
own servants, was a mask by which he hid the 
real harsh, egotistical self. 

He did not ask his daughter if she were tired, 
but spoke to her in few words with a sort of in- 
sistence. It was a part, no doubt, of her over- 
strained condition which made her conscious for the 
instant of a sort of recoil, for which she loathed 
herself— a feeling of distrust almost bordering on 
aversion for the man who, in his intense selfishness, 
had dismissed her lover, angrily forbidding the match 
without giving any satisfactory reason. Her admira- 
tion, almost worship, for her father’s intellect had 
aways been far greater than her love for him, and 
her affection for Stephen had had something of a 
mother’s love in it. She had discerned the weak- 
nesses of his artistic nature, hoping with her own 
stronger character to shield him from the realities 
of life. But she did not wonder that he chafed 
bitterly at a lifelong separation which seemed to be 
enforced by the egotism of another. 

“ There can be no possible reason why we should 


68 


A Waking, 


not be allowed to see each other. Surely we could 
wait in patience, and I might be of use to you in 
your present anxiety, ” he had said in a letter which 
but half an hour before she had held in her hand. 

But Zina knew better, knew that her father expected 
everyone to yield invariable subservience to his will, 
and that, though he had not given any distinct 
reason for his refusal, the years would not change 
him; she had never yet known him change any 
resolution. 

Once more all her soul was up in arms against 
him, and then instantly she remembered that he was 
very ill, just in that state in which something terrible 
might happen, and that if she were to allow herself 
to speak to, or think disrespectfully of him, she 
might never forgive herself 


CHAPTER X. 


In the sick-room. 

Another week passed. Zina had ceased to take 
any count of time. All her thoughts were intent 
on the father who might he drifting away from her, 
and who kept his face turned away from her, so 
occupied with his own illness that she could not 
judge if he were better or worse. The doctors in 
attendance differed in their opinions, and she was 
alternately in a state of hopefulness and dejection, 
exhausted by her own conjectures. 

She had written to Stephen to forbid him to 
attempt to see her, reminding him how her father’s 
illness had begun with an exciting scene, and how 
since then he had seemed to go down-hill from bad 
to worse ; how he could only talk of his sufferings 
or look at her as if he reproached her, so that she 
shuddered at the thought of anything which might 
widen the breach which had already taken place 
between them. 

Sometimes Stuart Newbolt would groan and toss 


70 


A Waking. 


his arms about. Then he would wander a little in his 
talk, his thoughts dwelling on the past. 

It was hard that he should still refuse to be 
waited upon during the night by the nurse. For he 
was difficult to please. And when Zina rose to give 
him his medicine he seemed always to be reminded 
of the immediate cause of his illness. She fancied 
that his glance lighted on her with a sort of sus- 
picion, and when he asked in the thick speech 
caused by illness, “You have not seen this fellow 
— or had any communication with him?” the thought 
crossed her mind in a more direct form than 
before, “If my father were to die this farce would 
cease, and I should be free to act out my own life. ” 

This time she was in despair. For there was no 
voice. The wicked idea pure and simple seemed to 
come from within ; there could no longer be any 
chance of deceiving herself. 

She trembled and sat down, feeling as if her 
limbs refused to bear her; no doubt she was weak 
from her constant attendance on the sick man. She 
was not even aware that she had left his question 
unanswered, as she awoke with a shudder to the 
recognition of the fact that she had anticipated — 
almost wished, though only for a moment, for her 
father’s death. 

Had any doctor, or any clergyman, practised in 
reading character, been able to look into her heart, 
or any psychologist skilled ever so slightly in under- 
standing the morbid tricks of an excitable imagin- 
ation unable to shake off a melancholy caused by 
a habit of reserve; or had she herself been freer 
from the strange suggestive thoughts and emotions 
which had haunted her from her youth upwards, she 
would have known that what she needed was more 
sleep, and plenty of fresh air. But she had no one 
to warn her to resist a mental habit, which if 
aggravated would become like a disease. 


In the Sick-room . 


7 1 

She had no sense of exaggeration in accusing 
herself of having wished for her father’s death. It 
was untrue — she wronged herself when she reflected 
at the same moment that the next step down- 
ward might have been — murder! To desire, to even 
contemplate, a fellow-creature’s death with the idea 
of the advantage which might accrue to oneself was, 
according to that ideal Christianity which she had 
discussed so often with Mary Carruthers, nothing 
less than murder itself — the wish was the same as 
the act. Neither was there anyone to assure her that 
she had seized upon the sterner side of the Christian 
creed, or to remind her that she was outraging 
nature when she still undertook more than her 
fair share of work during the weary watches of 
the next few nights, not perceiving the increasing 
jealousy of the professional nurse, who had become 
lynx-eyed to Miss Newbolt’s eccentricities, and not 
knowing that by her very assiduity she was heigh- 
tening her morbid condition, without succeeding in 
quieting the conscience which had so suddenly 
been aroused. 

The doctors had ordered her father laudanum to 
lull the pain from which he suffered, and it often be- 
came a part of Zina’s duty to measure out the 
doses. She would willingly have evaded this duty, 
but though the invalid was still morose and irrit- 
able in his manner to everyone, he seemed less 
and less willing to allow her out of his sight. 

Her natural character did not assert itself under 
the crisis, and more than one of the medical men 
saw the quick, spasmodic movement with which she 
tried to bear up as she leant over the sick man, 
who would have no arms but hers around him in 
his contortions of agony. She did not let it em- 
barrass her, though in his delirium he talked against 
her. Only when it was stormy weather and the 
night winds were howling round the house, striking 


72 


A Waking, 


weird melodies from the harmonica- wires of the 
wind-harp, which in happier days she had put up 
outside the window, did she break into tears and 
cry. “ He is not so bad. He is only like other 
people when they are ill, with a longing to pick a 
quarrel with somebody or other, and have it out 
with somebody supposed to have offended them. 
I myself have felt just like that — the people who 
speak against him are calumniators and liars.” 

Yet when the morning came, and the doctors 
went on giving her hope, she was too exhausted 
to know if she were glad, and the weary self- 
reproaches would begin over again. And when the 
time came round for pouring out his dose, the old 
tormenting voice seemed to whisper into her ear, 
“ If — if — he were never to awaken from this sleep ! ” 

Whence came this hair-splitting tendency this 
want of balance, this ridiculous subtlety? 

Could she help the picture conjured up by her 
vivid imagination in the twinkling of an eye? The 
involuntary tricks played by this morbid imagin- 
ation were a part of the temperament which might have 
made her a heroine or a martyr. It was not her 
own thought, as she had sense enough to perceive — 
it was hateful, barbarous, loathsome — it must have 
been transmitted to her from the savage instincts 
of some half-civilised ancestors. Her training had 
taught her to disbelieve in any bad influence from 
without, in any diabolic flashes of thought flung 
across her own half-sleeping consciousness ; and yet 
she would have been glad to think that this haunting 
terror did not originate from her own will, thankful 
to fling it away from her as diabolic. 

She hesitated, her fingers trembled, so unwilling 
was she to pour out the dose. But it had to be 
given, and after it he sank as usual into a troubled 
sleep. When he woke again his mind seemed to 
be quite hazy. There was nothing more to cause 


hi the Sick-room . 


73 


excitement, no trouble, no anxious questionings of 
any kind, and once more she asked herself if there 
could be really any chance of recovery, and won- 
dered vaguely if he were to die as he had lived. 

At one moment she had nearly yielded to a press- 
ing impulse to drop down on her knees by her 
father’s bedside. 

She felt that it would ease her surcharged heart, 
and that there would be something quieting in the 
1 attitude of prayer, but she asked herself to whom she 
was to kneel, repelling the impulse and hiding her face 
in the bedclothes with a shuddering cry. Old recol- 
lections, old thoughts of her childhood, of her father’s 
former tenderness to her, rather than his later irri- 
tation, crowded upon her and prompted her to pray ; 
for Zina had been born to be an enthusiast, and 
had been drawn at one time to all that was primeval 
and essential in Christianity. And though the formulae 
had been given up, the mysticism still remained. 
In the old days there would have been the making 
of a saint about this woman — now, only a bitter 
questioning, a vacuity and darkness troubled her. 

She began to have a nervous terror of that other 
watcher who often insisted on staying in the 
room, who again hinted that she should be blamed 
if anything went wrong with her case. “ Case — ” 
that was what her father was called. It struck 
Zina once more with that touch of humour which 
had more of pain in it than amusement'that he was 
simply “a case”, even when she caught the nurse’s 
eyes fixed on hers with a meaning which she did 
not fathom or even try to understand. So all her 
thoughts were fixed on that life which was hanging 
by a thread, and in the silence which thrilled her 
during the awful hours of the night she was con- 
scious again of that agony of compunction for the 
fact that this illness had begun after a quarrel — the 
first serious quarrel between herself and her father. 


74 


A Waking. 


Every sense seemed to be intensified, every sound, 
every sight; but the thought that the nurse’s un- 
friendly eyes were fixed upon her would as effectu- 
ally have restrained her from prayer as that other 
thought which was just then pressing its icy fingers 
on her heart, that she was brought face to face with 
inviolable laws to which it was her duty to try to 
adjust herself — laws as awful as the awful reality 
of the Unknowable. 

The patient slept again more heavily than before, 
but he stirred and muttered in his sleep, as a gust 
of memory swept over him. They bent down to 
hear what he said— he was muttering of his gambling 
debts. 


CHAPTER XL 


TOO LATE. 

The poor girl never afterwards forgot those hours 
of watching. It was several nights since. she had 
gone to bed, and she had almost left off feeling 
the natural inclination to sleep. But her nerves 
were overstrained, and her senses still exaggerated 
every sight and sound. The loud ticking of the 
clock on the stairs and the feebler pulse of the 
watch on the table of the room, each grated on 
her senses and seemed to keep time with the 
subtle questions which she was unable to answer — 
subtle and ridiculous questions which might have 
been suggested to her by sinister beings bent on 
hurting her. The lamp, like the great haunting eye 
of some uncanny Cyclops, stared at her through 
the darkness. 

It did not supply sufficient light in the room for 
her to see her father’s face, had he not turned it 
away from observation as he habitually did. 

But she was certain that she saw the sharpened 


76 


A Waking . 


profile on the pillow, and could picture him to 
herself dead, so that never another word from her 
could reach him. She felt inclined to cry out, but 
restrained herself as a matter of duty, so impressed 
was she with the idea that soon, very soon, her 
father would be gone and she no longer able to 
communicate with him, though they had much to say 
to each other. 

She did utter a cry when towards the morning 
Stuart Newbolt opened his heavy eyes, but it 
was quite plain that he no longer saw his daughter, 
neither did he hear. He looked at her with an in- 
fantile smile; it was indeed too late for any further 
intercourse now. 

“ Too late ! ” she repeated to herself, recognising the 
futility of human effort, crushed and overwhelmed 
by it, as both women attempted in vain to rouse 
the sick man from that fatal inclination to sleep. 

“ The effect of the draught should have passed off 
now, if he did not take more than he ought to have 
taken during the night,” muttered the nurse, loud 
enough for Zina to hear her. 

But Zina heard nothing. The re-action had come ; 
she was too tired to take in any definite idea. 
Afterwards she remembered that she tottered, and 
would have fallen had not somebody stretched out a 
hand to help her. Once indeed she caught herself 
talking out loud a sort of delirious nonsense; but 
she did not know that she was saying strange things 
about herself. A sort of dull apathy seemed to have 
taken possession of her as well as of the man by 
whose sick-bed they were watching. 

Neither did she see the expression of the other 
woman’s face. She only saw that dying face, with 
the blank look of the eyes whenever they succeeded 
in rousing him for a moment — a look as if the soul 
had put up its shutters to concentrate all its efforts 
on the struggle which was being waged within. She 


Too late . 


77 


suddenly remembered once to have heard her father 
say in one of his sarcastic moods, that he did not 
like the idea of death, and he believed that in their 
secret hearts most 'men were cowards about it ; but 
that he hoped by the study of natural science to 
prolong his own life to that period of senile decay, 
when there would be nothing to feel and nothing to 
encounter. She recalled that speech with a shudder 
just now. For, if there was mortal conflict going on 
behind those blank eyes which looked so much like 
closed shutters, why should she speak to disturb 
the soul which was settling itself to rest? To rest? 
To the eternal sleep of which he had so often spoken, 
dying out like a vegetable ? She could not reconcile 
it with her other ideas that there might be such things 
as eternal principles, of which outward appearances 
were only the accidental and fleeting forms. 

She was so absorbed in her own thoughts that 
she did not notice the nurse’s indignant astonish- 
ment, as she said in a low tone, “ Do not vex him— 
do not disturb him — let him rest.” 

The doctors came with their low-toned questions, 
and she could gather that they were surprised, 
especially the younger and cleverer of them, who 
had been the most sanguine of the two, and had 
throughout given hope of Stuart Newbolt’s recovery. 
She saw them examining the bottle with the lauda- 
num, but, even then, she did not know that there 
would be no awakening for her father, that all was 
over, and that he had actually died since he had 
taken his last dose. She was so thoroughly worn 
out that she was only conscious of an awful still- 
ness, a hushed period of waiting, and then— as tliey 
suggested that she should go to her room — of the 
trees in the square melting by degrees into the pale 
grey of the evening light, till their outlines became 
like everything else, shadowy and indistinct. One 
of the maids came to her and suggested that she 


78 


A Waking . 


should take a cup of tea, being evidently much 
astonished that Miss Newbolt had not drawn down 
her window-blinds. 

The apparent zeal of the servants grated on her 
feelings. What right had they to make such a fuss — 
they to whom he had never really belonged ? Why 
should they shed tears when her eyelids were dry? 
She insisted on redraping the bed on which they 
had laid out the corpse ; she persuaded herself that 
she would make it look less ghastly if she arranged 
some lace round the pillows. 

What, she asked herself, was the use of the out- 
ward mourning and all the paraphernalia of crape 
with the anodyne of fashion-books which the dress- 
makers were already sending, when it was the soul 
alone which mourned? And why did they want to 
close the windows, and make the atmosphere hot and 
stuffy? 

“ It’s not respectable-like for her to sit in that 
way, staring right in front of her, and not shedding 
a tear,” reported her maid in the servants’ hall, 
which just then was thronged with gossips, as none 
of the servants were performing their ordinary 
work, and everyone’s usual avocation seemed to 
be gone. 

She did not take the tea, she did not lie down, 
and she did not weep, for all her passionate feel- 
ings were focussed on one subject. 

She had never till now thought seriously about 
death, nor allowed herself to feel that it would not 
be worth while to face the present existence if there 
were not another life. But she was overcome 
by the presence of the white face on the pillow — 
the Thing which had once been her father, but which 
now seemed no longer to have any part in her. 
The Why, the Whence, and the Where came upon 
her with overwhelming force, and she was unable 
to give them an answer. 


Too late . 


79 


“How feeble he would have called me,” she 
thought as she turned away from the corpse, “how 
often have I heard him say that we have no more 
right than the molecule to protest against being 
merged in the whole.” 

Then came the recollection of Stephen Dewe. 
Was it worth while to love any creature, any human 
being, and to expend the very essence of one’s 
soul, drop by drop, when after all came death, and 
love might end in — nothing? 

But was it possible that Life could end — end — 
that one, so palpitating with it and its hopes and 
fears as she had been till lately, could exist no 
longer? She sat down, with her head in her fever- 
ish hands, and found the problem unthinkable, as 
many a woman has found it before her — then derided 
herself for her childish egotism. Had she not been 
equally silly when, as a little girl, she had been puzzled 
to conceive of the world going, on before she 
was born? 

She laughed at her own absurdity. And yet if 
there were no future life, nothing to reward one 
after all — then why all this nerve-suffering, why all 
this complex civilisation? Let life be natural and 
simple, let men and women enjoy themselves to 
their finger-tips! She hoped that there was an answer 
to this heathen philosophy, more satisfactory than the 
blind optimism which was fainting and sinking when 
it ought to have sustained her; she had always recog- 
nised the necessity for righteousness and love — the 
altruism which considers the feelings and well-being 
of others, and which trained her to the habit of 
trying to understand things as they were, and express 
them without exaggeration. If the corpse .which dinted 
the bedclothes with solemn outlines in the same house 
could arise and speak to her, would it not say, as 
he often had said, “Zina, do not get into that 
foolish feminine habit of exaggerating your feelings. ” 


8 o 


A Waking . 


And yet, as the sparrows flew past her window, 
and as the outlines of the trees grew dimmer in 
the square, they seemed to say to her, 

“Oh, foolish mortal, why do you wear yourself 
out for nothing? The beautiful sunlight has gone, 
and the peace of the summer days. You have let 
them all pass, you have thrown your treasures from 
you. And now the winter will soon be on you, 
and you will weep in the days which are dark and 
sullen, and soon death may come, and nothing will 
be left to you.” 

The next day was like a passing medley of 
shadows, with only a break now and then, and 
surprise following closely on the heels of surprise. 

There were the usual influx of cards, and the usual 
condolences of friends which seemed to her so trite 
and miserably commonplace. Then there was the 
necessary investigation of her father’s affairs — the 
tearing up of his letters and the strange papers he 
had left behind him — strange notes of a strange 
mind — strange intricacies of a most unusual life. 

And, finding some leaves of a diary left in his 
desk which seemed to throw rather an odd and 
unexpected light on some of the gossip retailed to 
her by Eva Capern, she thought it better to send 
at once for the family lawyer. He came, a grave and 
astute man, whom she had known from her childhood, 
kind withal but not encouraging. How could he 
encourage her when it appeared, after a little inquiry, 
that Stuart Newbolt had indeed eaten up his for- 
tune, leaving nothing for the descendants who might 
possibly come after him? Scarcely enough to pay 
the servants would be left out of the wreck. Years 
before he had invested in a company which ensured 
him at first 20 per cent interest ; then, as the interest 
decreased, he had sunk more and more of his hun- 
dreds with the hope of gaining as large a profit 
for his capital as before. Suddenly most of his 


Too late. 


81 


profits had ceased, but he had indemnified himselt 
for his losses by sinking the rest of his capital in 
purchasing a handsome annuity for his lifetime. 
Everything that he had had died with him, and 
though he had taken the pains to write a letter in 
which he blamed the specious swindling companies 
which play havoc with a man’s capital by offering 
ruinous interest, no one could have known better 
than himself that the will which he left behind him 
was as worthless as waste paper. 

Zina received the announcement as coldly and 
unconcernedly as if it had not affected herself. This 
then was what her father had kept in reserve, and 
what he had often longed to tell her. Probably, 
as she said to herself, making excuses for the dead, 
he had some well-planned scheme for her own be- 
nefit which made him object to her marriage with 
Stephen. Whatever it was, it would be locked up 
now in the silence of the grave, and, if other people 
did not think him excusable they were wrong; 
they had no right to judge him for a miscalculation, 
an error in arithmetic, which could scarcely be 
deemed a crime. When his moral laxity in questions 
of debit and credit became more evident she still 
refused to blame him, and though she winced a 
little to think how the respect inclining to servility 
which people had hitherto paid to his money would 
suddenly disappear, and how the full odium of the 
miserable state of things must fall upon herself, she 
smiled at the remembrance that Stephen Dewe 
would be ready to protect her. 

Her vivid imagination was ready to picture the 
humiliations and vexations which would be sure to 
follow in a few days; how some of the clever jour- 
nalists would pen pungent and witty sentences at 
the expense of the name of Newbolt, and how 
scornfully they would descant on the pretensions 
of this new adventurer who had made such a sue- 


8 2 


A Waking. 


cessful assault on the fortress of London society, 
seeming for a time as if he would take it by storm. 
Well, what did it matter? If Stephen hurried the 
marriage as he was sure to do, she would soon 
be changing the name of Newbolt — the great thing 
which mattered was that none of these things could 
vex her father nowl 


CHAPTER XIL 


CAN HE DISTRUST HER? 

Eva Capern had been wonderfully sparing of her 
visits since her guardian’s illness had become more 
serious, and the world had begun to talk. 

Her admitted objection to everything which was 
“ unpleasant” , an objection which Stuart Newbolt 
had done his best to inculcate, had made her fight 
shy of the house during that period of breathless 
interest, that hush in the drama of Life, which 
almost always takes place where Death is expected 
to take possession. In the beginning she had taken 
the illness lightly, but at the first serious alarm had 
made up her mind that it would end fatally, and 
had never shared in the sanguine forecast of either 
the nurse or the more cheerful doctor. And now 
she absented herself on the score of delicate health. 
Zina resented her heartlessness on her father’s 
account; for, whatever other duty he might have 
failed to discharge, Stuart Newbolt had never been 
found wanting in his position of faithfulness towards 


8 4 


A Waking . 


his ward. Again she congratulated herself that she 
would be free of Eva in the future, with no need 
for Mrs. Capern’s help, or her patronising ways, for 
Stephen Dewe could only be waiting for the first 
few hours of her bereavement to pass before he 
presented himself as her affianced lover. Ah, what 
a good thing that she had Stephen who would not 
allow Eva Capern to worry her by transgressing 
the bounds of politeness in the familiarity of her 
questioning; what a comforting thing that Stephen 
was simple-minded, and had none of the aristocratic 
tricks of manner which she loathed in some of the 
men her father had wanted her to marry ! What a 
shock of disgust those men would have had when 
they came to know all about her, her father, and 
her poor mother! What a mercy she had refused 
to marry them! But Stephen was so different, to 
whom she would never be slavishly bound by 
mysterious obligations, founded on financial consider- 
ations! The thought of him came to her with 
a sense of rest, emotion, and even gratitude. She 
had never yet rushed into his arms, never yet wept 
upon his bosom, but had he come to her then, 
when her heart was full to bursting, she would 
probably have given vent to her pent-up emotions. 
It never occurred to her to think how they were to 
support themselves. Hitherto she had been so free 
from the biting vexations and cankering cares ot 
poverty that she scarcely troubled to ask herself if 
Stephen Dewe had enough for both of them. 

The middle of the day came, the lawyer had gone. 
He was well stricken in years, and Zina had not 
hesitated to tell him that he need not be solicitous 
about her future, for that she was on the eve of 
her marriage with a man to whom she had been 
for some time engaged. He was of opinion that 
sufficient would be left from the annuity to enable 
.her to wind up her father’s affairs, and already she 


Can he distrust her? 


85 


had sent for the servants and given them their 
dismissal. The interview with the nurse she deferred 
till the last, for she had never thoroughly liked the 
woman, who now announced her intention of waiting 
for the funeral. Zina was equally determined that 
she should not wait, but in getting rid of her she 
counted on Stephen Dewe’s assistance. 

The afternoon wore on, and Stephen Dewe did 
not come. She went up into her room and tried to 
calm herself by lying down, but finding it impos- 
sible to keep still, she rose and fell into her old 
habit of walking for the hour together, restlessly, 
aimlessly, up and down, up and down the floor — 
waiting, waiting, though she did not like to say so 
to herself. Never before in all her life had she. to 
acknowledge to herself that she was waiting — and 
for a man — who did not come! 

Many already had been the inquiries at the street- 
door, but surely Stephen should have been the first. 
Whatever business he might chance to have should 
have been put aside at once, when she, whom he 
loved, was in need of assistance. Perhaps he, too, 
had heard some of the unkind gossip. She put the 
thought aside as an outrageous one, which only 
roused her laughter. For if she was inclined to 
ponder a little as to what so7ne folk, for whose 
opinion she might care, might say about the crash 
which had come into her life and hdr sudden dis- 
appearance, as that of a sort of female pretender, 
from Chester-Square, she had only smiled at her 
own egotism, reminding herself that she and her 
belongings were not the only people in the world, 
and that a “ nine days wonder” about them signified 
very little. If it mattered little to them, how much 
less to Stephen, who was ready to take everything on 
his own broad shoulders, and who cared as little as 
she did for mere tittle-tattle. 

At last the darkness fell— the darkness of the 


86 


A Waking. 


summer night, preceded by a long period of twilight, 
and then she started up suddenly. But the rap did 
not come to announce Mr. Dewe. The nurse, whom 
she had tried to forget, did not wait to be welcomed 
in. She came in aggressively, wdth a strange look 
on her face, which was unusually white. 

It occurred to Zina that she had perhaps failed 
in her duty in not offering the woman a glass of 
wine. She spoke her thought aloud, taking up the 
keys, and determining to order some of the best 
port which her father’s cellar contained. 

But, to her surprise, the nurse shrank back with 
a shrewd look upon her pallid face. She announced 
her resolution of taking neither bread nor sup again 
in that house, and of hastening away from it as soon 
as it were possible to do so ; and Zina turned 
cold, while the beads of perspiration stood on her 
forehead, as the woman went on to tell her for the 
first time that the doctor, who had thought his 
patient would recover, had not hesitated to hint that 
the nurse in attendance had probably given him 
too much laudanum. 

“ How could he be so unfair to you ? Of course 
you set it right. Why, it was 1 who gave him the 
two last doses of opium. He would not let you come 
near him, still less pour out his medicine. We did 
not even venture to tell him that you were behind 
the screen in his room,” faltered Zina, the old 
agony returning to her, as the old morbid idea 
again took possession of her brain, and she once 
more remembered a sophistical argument, which 
she had even heard her father himself maintain — 
that a wish often leads to an unconscious act. “It 
was I who gave it, but I dropped it out with the 
greatest care.” 

“ I told them you would say so ; they always say 
they have taken the greatest care,” retorted the 
woman in an insolent voice. 


Can he distrust her f 


87 

" Whom do you mean by they? or them ?” asked 
Zina in a low voice. 

“Dr. Melton and the tall fair gentleman who 
called in the afternoon, and would not let you be 
disturbed,” answered the nurse, evading the first 
question. “ The lawyer had told the servants that the 
fair young gentleman was to be admitted, and he 
came in when I was having high words with the 
doctor. No doubt it is all a mistake ; these things 
generally are. But the gentleman stood in the hall 
— he must have overheard — for he burst right in 
upon us, and said he could answer for your careful- 
ness in sick nursing. Carefulness or not, I am sorry 
to have to say it, but I have been insulted and in- 
terfered with ever since I entered this house, and 
leave it I will — the sooner the better; there’s a 
curse hanging over the place.” 

The angry woman stopped suddenly in her excited 
speech. She was a worthy woman, and it was not 
her fault that being unimaginative she took things 
too literally, or that a long apprenticeship in the 
sick-room had lessened rather then intensified her 
sympathies; not her fault if nature had denied the 
proper amount of oil necessary for the gracious 
working of her spiritual machinery. She had intended 
to do her duty, but the sight of Miss Newbolt staring 
at her long and fixedly, evidently trying to collect 
her thoughts, failing to do so, and yet shrinking 
visibly as she began to understand, brought her 
suddenly to the recollection of possible conse- 
quences. For the nurse had never before come in 
contact with such speaking eyes, never guessed 
that there could be such power of expression in 
any human countenance. It was her turn to shrink 
as those innocent eyes blazed upon her, and the 
true character of their owner became transparent 
as that of a child. 

“Sometimes when people are a little overdone, 


88 


A W'aking. 


they scarcely know what they are doing — perhaps that 
was the case with you last night,” she stammered, 
trying to take back her imputation. 

Years afterwards it all came back to Zina in a 
calmer mood. 

How the woman — indignant at the imputation on her 
own management — might not have intended any 
special meaning to be attached to her words. 

They had, none of them, any comprehension ot 
Miss Newbolt’s shivering sensitiveness, nor how it 
was that a suspicion born in her own imagination 
and suddenly taking shape, could smite her like a 
deadly missile. It was strange how it had never 
occurred to her to think that the nurse in her blind 
anger might have been heedless of what she said, 
not meaning half of it, or animated only by a 
childish desire to sting and irritate. Had she not 
been living in an atmosphere of perpetual apprehension, 
where the merest whisper swelled into reality and 
intensity, as if it had travelled through a speaking 
tube, Zina knew afterwards that the foolish imputation 
would have been powerless to injure. „ 

But just then she could not reason. Just then it 
was more natural for it to flash upon her that the 
nurse, who had doubtless seen many strange things 
in different houses, in the various experiences of 
her difficult cases, might have formed a theory of 
her own — a theory not actually likely to hurt 
her, since it had probably been a part of her training 
to learn to keep a quiet tongue in her head, and 
if she as well as the family doctor came in sometimes 
for strange chapters in life, those strange chapters 
would not be revealed. What else could the woman 
mean? She was certainly no adept at insinuating 
rather than speaking, as Eva Capern might have 
done, with pretty gesture and waves of the hand. 
And the bewildered girl’s brain was still incapable 
of reasoning. 


























































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* 



























• 






• * 

































J 






























. 








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Can he distrust her f 


89 


“ Go — go— I — cannot understand what you mean — 
and even if I could, I should refuse to discuss it with 
you,” she stammered in her agitation and perplexity, 
pointing to the door. “Do you not see that I am 
ill? I was never like this before. How cold I am!” 

Her teeth were chattering, her whirling thoughts 
lapsing into chaos, and before the nurse could obey 
her order, her head fell forward as if she were half 
asleep, and in another moment she lay unconscious 
on the floor. 

It was more than an hour afterwards, between 
eleven and twelve o’clock, when Stephen Dewe 
stood again at the door of the house in Chester-Square. 

The darkness had grown deeper, but the stars 
had taken their places like silent sentinels in the 
sky, the Bear, Orion, Cassiopeia, and the Milky 
Way, shining over the great city which lay stretched 
like a shapeless rn^ss beneath. 

But the innumerable starry points of the dusky 
sky had at that moment no message for him, any 
more than for the unhappy girl, who had been 
trained to look at them as only a “brilliant erup- 
tion” on the firmament, containing no blissful spot, 
and no possible home where the weary and ill- 
treated would find a refuge after death. 

She had recovered from her transitory faintness, 
and in the craving of her heart for human tender- 
ness, had determined to put silly pride on one 
side, and was listening with beating heart for her 
lover’s footstep — he who would protect her from 
all indignity, watch over her, and decide for her 
in difficulties which seemed to be too serious for 
one person to settle! For she could not reason as 
yet — her sense of degradation excluding all other 
and more natural ideas — or perhaps she might have 
thought twice as to the wisdom of appealing to 
Stephen Dewe when the world about her seemed 
to be topsy-turvy. 


go 


A Waking . 


The rest of the world was going on as if nothing 
was turned upside down, or in any way affected 
by the craziness within her. 

A carriage bringing some elegantly dressed 
women from the theatre was standing at the next 
door, the jingling of the reins as the coachman 
drove away, blending with the sound of dance- 
music from a piano a few doors further off, and 
reminding Stephen that, in spite of the event which 
had just happened, the London season — that strange 
orgie of refined rioting — was still in full swing, and 
that he still continued to inhabit the wealthiest, the 
poorest, the cleverest and the stupidest, the gayest 
and the saddest city on this globe. 

It was with much anxiety and some sinking of 
the heart that he inquired again for Zina. It was 
true that he had been to the house once before to 
comfort her in her loneliness after her father’s 
death, and that he had overheard the nurse’s gossip 
— true also that he found himself unable to sleep 
or to rest at any distance from Zina without inquir- 
ing for further news. 

He had no expectation of seeing her, and he told 
himself afterwards that nothing in all his life had 
amazed him so much as that she should have broken 
through all the usual conventional rules by coming 
down to him at that hour. 

The light dazzled her; she had been so long in 
the sick-room that she seemed at first scarcely to 
understand whose was the dark figure, which 
stood awaiting her in the hall. 

She drew him into the study. There was some- 
thing weird and terrifying in her pallid beauty, 
with the eyes dark and deep, which gave character 
to her face. He gazed at her in astonishment. 

Paracelsus was wont to describe an experiment 
in which a flower perished ; you burnt it ; whatever 
was left of the original flower was dispersed — you 


Can he distrust her f 


9i 


knew not whither and no efforts could re-constitute 
it. But the power of chemistry — according to Para- 
celsus-enabled you to raise a spectrum from the 
burnt dust of the flower, just as it appeared in life. 
It is not necessary for us to vouch — as the elder 
Disraeli did — for the credibility of such an idea. It 
is sufficient to say that in the human being it 
sometimes seems as if the soul may have escaped 
like the essence of such a flower, and the appear- 
ance which remains has an unreality like the spec- 
trum. It was as if the real Zina had gone. 

She had been the woman whom he revered, 
whom he worshipped with pure devotion, who had 
climbed to the heights of human intelligence and 
preserved all the purity of a child, in whom the 
head and heart had seemed to be alike developed 
— that rare combination in a woman. She had been 
more than human to him before, but she was less 
than human now, with the horrible imputation con- 
tained in that uncanny talk sounding in his ears, and 
the change in her own appearance seeming to give 
a sinister importance to that chatter. He was sorry 
for her, pitiful, when he thought of the way in which 
she had been brought up ; but he was a young man 
of critical as well as artistic nature, and at that 
moment he felt as if she could never be to him 
again the idol he had worshipped. 

He tried to speak, but the twitching mouth inad- 
vertently betrayed him. Yet something passed be- 
tween them in the effort of those one or two words 
which did not need speech, the sound, \ as it were, 
of the sentiment which conveyed a physical as well 
as a mental impression to her delicate nerves. It 
was one of those moments which do not easily re- 
peat themselves in life, and which, if they did, 
would make the effort of living impossible. 

His sudden terror was as real to her as if he had 
vulgarly accused her, forcing his want of trust, 


9 2 


A Waking . 


brutally, down her throat. And in one instant she had 
recovered herself. “ Go! go! I cannot speak to you 
now. I am too much upset,” she said, forgetful 
that she herself had summoned him but the moment 
before. Then she tottered towards the door, spar- 
ing of her regrets or her farewells, determined to 
exert her will to the uttermost, lest her fainting at- 
tack should repeat itself. For the unexpected atti- 
tude of the man on whom she had relied had the 
effect upon her of a cold douche- the possibility 
that he could feel distrustful about her for a moment 
brought her to her senses. 

Alone in the room by her father’s corpse, she sat 
up during the silent hours of the night pale and in- 
dignant, no longer absent-minded and pre-occupied, 
no longer a prey to morbid thoughts. 

The want of anything like real imagination in 
Stephen Dewe’s case, when the illuminating power 
of music could not come to his assistance, which had 
so little prepared him for something unusual in her 
character — something out of the common beat— even 
if it were overstrained and morbid, roused her to 
self-defence and a healthier re-action. Again and 
again during the hours of the night she occupied 
herself with going over and over her past. She 
who had always till now been self-reliant and never 
needed a mother, and who had been just old enough, 
when her mother died, to realise that she and her 
father had little in common, now racked her brain 
to remember the episode^ of her childhood. Memory 
had filched away much that was precious, but she 
could recall the proud looks and airs of infallibility 
with which her father had indignantly reprobated 
her mother’s Catholic teaching, himself an apostle 
of free thought content, with his official ordnance 
map of the infinite Universe in which he lived. She 
had a half-pathetic and half-humorous recollection 
of her mother’s great belief in her daughter’s supe- 


Can he distrust her? 


93 


rior brain-power, and of how little she had inter- 
fered with her unless her interference was necessary. 
In the old days she had thought a little scornfully 
of that poor crushed mother, telling herself that she 
had no admiration for those compliant, no-charac- 
tered women, who swamped their own habits and 
opinions in those of their husbands. But now she 
found herself, to her astonishment, calling upon her 
for help, when she did not know to whom to call, 
with that sense of the eerie which makes us shiver 
at the consciousness of mere disembodied wills and 
intelligences in a possibly invisible world of which 
we have not the key. 

“ O mother, whom I slighted till I lost you, never 
guessing at the intense aching of your heart while 
you patiently waited! O father, who treated her 
so coldly and strangely, but whose intellect was so 
keen that it did not seem as if it could die! Do 
either of you see me now? Was it from either of 
you that I inherited this gift for puzzling and tor- 
menting myself? Speak to me if you can, speak, 
and let me know, if you exist, that there is a future 
life in which the injustices and misunderstandings of 
this one will be set right, ” she cried as she stretched 
herself by the side of the corpse. 

Was it nothing which responded to her aspiration 
— to her cry for help in her emergency? Would 
it be of any use for her to have recourse to what 
other people called prayer? 

In the morning she was delirious — the doctors 
spoke of brain fever, and Stephen Dewe was in con- 
stant attendance. Her voice could be heard outside 
the door of her room, and there were moments when 
his anxiety was suspended by a new and strange 
curiosity. For the sick girl was accusing herself in 
her ravings, the women servants listening open- 
mouthed and frightened. He sent them downstairs 
with the assurance by which he attempted to brace 


94 


A Waking . 


his own mind, that sick people in this condition always 
harped on things which were farthest from the truth. 
Not the less was he impatient, fidgetting up and 
down the passage, stopping his ears that he might 
not hear, and then standing still and unconsciously 
listening in his stupefaction. 

Again and again there were iterations of the same 
dreary complaints — her father’s coldness, and his 
attempts to separate her from her lover. And then 
she harped on the hours of nursing, and the possi- 
bility of the medicine having been administered too 
carelessly. There was still nothing tangible for his 
dread to lay hold of, but the fact that he had fears 
was betrayed by his ashen — no longer love-glorified — 
face. 

One day when he had meant to ask if she were 
asleep, that he might just look in on her, or leave 
her a message to be given should she wake, that gnaw- 
ing fear got the better of him. The quirks of me- 
mory distracted him for it came back to him in a 
way he would rather have forgotten that he too 
had dwelt impatiently on the fact of how the 
father’s life stood in the way of the marriage. 

The whole prospect seemed to have undergone 
some gruesome change — it was no longer pleasant 
to him — the associations had spoiled it. He was no 
longer chafing feverishly at the inaction rendered 
necessary by her illness, or questioning the nurses 
hoarsely as to how soon she would be well enough 
to see him. 

She had ordered him to go, and, as she repeated 
these entreaties that he should go in agonised tones 
of voice which resounded through the silent house, 
he determined to take her at her word — and go abroad 
— at least for a time. 

He left a letter to tell her, that as the doctors 
had assured him it was necessary for her to be kept 
very quiet, and an interview with him would be 


Can he distrust her? 


95 


only likely to upset her even in convalescence, he 
had determined to immolate his own happiness on 
the altar of self-sacrifice. He felt a brute, and was 
not contented with his own wretched platitudes when 
he had written them, being haunted by the drawn 
misery of her pinched, unconscious face, still tussling 
with forces stronger than herself. But it was true 
enough that they had assured him she was already 
better, and would be likely to recover more quickly 
in his absence. 

“ It is all different, ” he said, “ and will be always 
different for me now. And who am I;” he added 
to himself, “ to insist on tormenting her with my 
presence ? * 


CHAPTER XIIL 


A FRIEND IN NEED. 

When Zina recovered from her interval of delirium, 
it was to find that the funeral was over, and that 
all that was mortal of Stuart Newbolt had been 
carried, not without parade, to the grave. The world 
had proved kinder than she had expected, and piles 
of snowy blossoms had crushed one another on the 
coffin — presents from the numerous guests who had 
constantly been entertained at Mr. Newbolt’s table — 
shewing wealth enough to have defrayed the 
expenses of a poorer man’s funeral. 

Zina was alone when she first recovered her 
consciousness. Her first impulse was to go to the 
window and put her head out in the fresh air, and 
her next to remember that she might be seen, and to 
retire from the light. Then she recalled everything — 
the wildly intoxicating visions of that night when 
she had thought that it might be possible for the spirits 
of the dead to appear to her, and the cruel and ignoble 
suspicions of the one man living whom she had trusted. 


A Friend in Need, 


97 


The cloud was lifted from her brain; she no 
longer reproached herself, but she could have laughed 
bitterly at herself for her misplaced faith, and for 
supposing that she could ever be the friend of one 
who could so mistrust her, as if the consciousness 
of a terrible crime —forsooth — had stepped between 
them. She shivered at the remembrance of her own 
insanity. It was all like a miserable nightmare, 
which made her still wish to hide herself, alike from 
the cruel sunshine which seemed to mock her, as 
from the stars with a million eyes which had likewise 
seemed to stare at her burning shame during the 
intolerable agony of that ever to-be-remembered 
night. 

But the delirium was over now — a thing of the 
past — and with its departure her strength of mind 
came back. She arose from her sick-bed an altered 
woman, more soured and suspicious, with her better 
nature crushed out of her by the conduct of one 
whom she had so devotedly loved; and whom she 
could not but believe to have been influenced by 
other motives than those which appeared on the 
surface. 

She had received Stephen Dewe’s letter, and 
never mentioned his name, but in her secret heart 
she said, “ He left me because he found out that 
I was penniless; it was not possible that he could 
think what he pretended to think about me.” 

Neither did she trouble herself any more about 
Mary’s creed, but felt thankful that she had been 
able to resist superstition, and that she had been 
taught to repress the miserable egotism which might 
lead her to confide every puny trouble to a First 
Cause that possibly did not exist. 

“As if my troubles would signify, even if It 
existed! I have to steel myself to bear, as other 
people have to bear things,” she said with a sneer 
at her own expense, determining at the same time 


g8 A Waking . 

to cure herself of her susceptibility to the opinions 
of others. 

There was a new hardness about her which Eva 
Capern recognised with astonishment when she 
offered her a home as her companion, and when 
Zina rejoined that she was “ too proud to live on 
charity.” From the sale of her father’s furniture, 
books, and articles of vertu , she realised a little for 
her immediate needs ; but much of this was required 
for the creditors. 

To do Mrs. Capern justice she had never attached 
any importance to the self-accusations of an over- 
worked, highly-strung, conscientious girl, and she 
really intended to be generous. Not the less was 
she evidently relieved when Zina declined her offer, 
telling her with an odd abrupt laugh that she had 
determined to try and forget herself and her own 
worries in Art. “If I can only lose my own 
identity in what I try to produce ! ” said the girl, 
a little surprised at herself for hating the proffered 
kindness of the woman, yet telling herself that Eva 
cared nothing about her, and only wished to make 
her an instrument for furthering her own ends ; 
that her heart was in fact branded by fashion and 
worldliness as with the stamp of a hot iron. 

That longing to be doing something more than 
could be found in the ordinary routine of an idle 
woman’s life made her turn with greater pleasure 
to an invitation from Mary Carruthers. Mary’s 
husband had been seriously ill, and for the benefit 
of his health she had given up her dismal lodgings 
in London and taken a cottage near Kingston-on- 
Thames. 

“ Come and be one of us and earn your own 
living,” Mary wrote in a glow of enthusiasm. “We 
have found a house and garden to be let for almost 
nothing. The children are beside themselves with 
delight. We shall be better off than usual, as they 


A Friend in Need. 


99 


have appointed me one of the editors of the Family 
Magazine, in which I have to act Mother Confessor 
to any number of young women of the shop-girl 
class, telling them about everything from Rowland’s 
Macassar Oil to the choice of a suitable husband. 
James is already better, and we only need you to 
complete our family circle.” 

Zina was, as usual, rather angry with James, ot 
whom Mary wrote with the tenderest pity. She had 
always felt certain that if James could be induced 
to be a little more active, his health would be im- 
proved. But her sympathy for Mary only made her 
the more willing to fall into her scheme of attempt- 
ing to support herself by her painting. The time 
seemed to her very far off when she had pitied other 
women for being forced to earn their bread ; her 
opinion had changed since she had known greater 
hardships. People, on the whole, were very kind. 
The old Canadian had written that, though he had 
unfortunately failed in his project of giving the same 
visual prominence to a single photograph which had 
hitherto been confined to the stereoscope, he was 
not without hope for his scheme about balloons, and 
if Miss Newbolt would accept some employment 
from him, he was now busied with a new invention 
which would displace the telescope, and bring the 
far-away worlds so near to our eyes that a coming 
generation might be able to hold intercourse with 
the inhabitants of Mars. 

Zina smiled as she re-read the letter on her short 
journey to the Carruthers. The flash and roar of 
the train, the wild flowers still blooming in the 
cuttings, the fresh green fields, the stately trees, 
and the coming in contact with ordinary people at 
the station were already giving a healthier tone to 
her thoughts. The season of winter was compara- 
tively near, for the trees were in their autumnal 
tints, but it was a blessing and delight to breathe 


IOO 


A Waking . 


the fresh air of heaven again. The scent of the 
earth sprinkled with falling rain was cheering as 
the sight of Mary’s face, wholesome and encou- 
raging, with no dismal talk about the past. Mary 
was accompanied by the children, and they all 
walked together from the station, picking their steps 
amid little pools of rain reflecting the grey of the 
clouds and the reds and russets of the decaying 
foliage, like tiny fluttering lakes in the road. 

“ It must be so stupid for you to walk,” said 
Mary, as she tripped carefully over some of the 
poor little puddles, which were pretending that 
they too were of the sky, “ so hard when you have 
always been accustomed to a carriage, and stupid 
for you to come at this dull season — no folk come 
to us at this time you know — and soon there will 
be a prevalence of snow and flood. In summer 
there are water-parties, chance artists, and families 
from London; and in summer too the fields near 
us are rich with poppies, looking as if they were 
sprinkled with blood. We hope to have sparkles 
of gold from crocuses in the spring; we have laid 
in a good stock to plant, in our garden.” 

She was prattling to cheer her friend, as she 
would have prattled to a child, but Zina did not hear 
her. Her eyes were wandering away to the mould 
in the fields, on each side of the road, turned up 
for tillage, of a colour which was refreshing, and 
she was thinking that some such process of healthy 
“turning-up” was taking place in her own life. 

No greater help could have come to her than 
Mary’s unsuspiciousness, Mary’s single-heartedness, 
and her matter-of-fact acceptance of the law of 
work for herself, and consequently for everyone 
else. Mary was too busy to think it odd for Zina 
to wish to be left alone to think. Without some 
such time for the healing processes of nature to go 
on unhindered, as Zina told herself in after life, she 


A Friend in Need. 


IOI 


might have gone mad, or worse still, she might 
have petrified into the mere semblance of a living 
woman. But everything seemed to help her in 
this calm retreat, everything at first seemed to be 
soothing to her nerves, from the tremor of air 
occasionally agitating the few dry leaves left on a 
poplar near her window to the stone-strewn rip- 
pling stream which purled on towards the river, and 
the beech twigs against the sky, and also beneath 
her window, of a delicate hazel colour, shading 
into a rich brown when the last leaves of all 
hanging by their feeble petioles fell off and rotted 
on the ground. Nothing was left then but the needles 
of the firs standing out against the wintry clouds. 

“It was all the same to her,” as she said some- 
times to herself, “whether the sky were blue or 
whether it were grey, ” quoting in her despondency. 

“ The clouds that gather round the setting sun. 

Do take a sober colouring from an eye 
That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality.” 

Yet the retirement of that winter did everything 
for Zina. She could perceive how it was owing 
to her own excitability, and the mismanagement of 
her own affairs that she had been nearly falling on 
the horns of such a dilemma. 

She could remind herself not to cherish malice. 
To remember was not to forgive — she would try 
not to remember. 

It was certainly amongst the middle-class good- 
wives, whose joyless hard-working faces she 
had at one time despised, that she was to learn 
common-sense. Mary prided herself on belonging 
to that class in society “ who live in mean little 
plaster houses and have one flower-bed for a 
garden.” The garden in which the crocuses were 
planted was certainly not much larger. But the. 
little woman was healthy-minded, affectionate, and. 


102 


A Waking. 


energetic as ever. She knew well enough that 
till Zina came to this place of rest she could not 
think out the thoughts which tormented her. She 
was aware that her beautiful friend's mind was 
filled with odds and ends and tangled speculations, 
and that she suffered in trying to analyse her suf- 
ferings. Mary saw it, and did her best to aid her. 
As a psychologist, all these processes interested 
her; as a friend, they made her despair. 

“I believe I might find an agent if you would 
take to decorative work — it is much the most lucra- 
tive, ” she said, managing to plan an artist’s room 
for Zina, lighted by glasses so arranged as to cast 
a sufficient light during the darkest days of winter. 
“Your powers of brain and hand are a great deal 
better than mine. You are a real artist, who may 
expect to live by doing capital work; but I — my 
career is amusing. What do you think of my coming 
out as Lorna? That is my name in my correspon- 
dence for the ‘Family Sympathiser, ’ ” she continued, 
chattering on in a somewhat long-winded fashion 
with the hope of turning Zina’s thoughts. “Lorna 
is a wonderful creature, who sharpens her little 
arrows of speech for those who deserve them, but 
who is conscious of blundering when she means to 
help. I assure you there are some pitiful tales poured 
out to Lorna, and I had one girl the other day who 
said she would have committed suicide if Lorna had 
not helped her. Sometimes they write to me about 
such funny things. One girl wrote to ask whether 
I would recommend her to sit for two hours a day 
in a ‘Nose Machine’ as she had a dreadful ‘turned- 
up’ nose (she spelt it ‘turnip’); and another woman 
wrote to consult me about a skin-stretcher, and some 
new little irons which had been invented to iron 
away the wrinkles. To the former I answered that 
‘tiptilted’ noses had been glorified by one of our 
first poets, and that the best connoisseurs of female 


A Friend in Need. 


103 


beaut/ would be horrified if ‘nose machines * could 
do away with the nez retrousst ; to the latter that 
wrinkles were beautiful; that not only did the 
cleverest artists like them, but that as a matter of 
taste, I myself should like to look properly old 
when the time came. I said that there was some- 
thing uncanny in always looking unwrinkled like 
the fruit, which remains green and hard, and never 
grows mellow. — That is all funny. — But some- 
times,” she added with a sort of shudder, “they 
write me private letters about terrible things — things 
which I could not tell you. ” 

And Zina understood poor Mary’s shudder; she 
sympathised with her distaste for any knowledge of 
corrupting things, any meddling with hectic complaints 
— a distaste which was characteristic of the woman. 

“It is not my fault, ” added Mary quickly, “if I 
could choose for my own girls, I would bring them 
up in absolute innocence and ignorance. But some 
folks say that is not wise. Anyhow there are a 
good many people who grumble at poor Lorna, and 
she cannot please them all. One correspondent 
writes to say that we ought to use better paper for 
our ‘Sympathiser,’ since it would come in so use- 
fully for wrapping up parcels. Another scolds 
because I do not have the paper softer, as it would 
do for cleaning windows. One writes to beg me 
to have more politics, as it is selfish for women to 
keep to their own narrow interests ; and then another 
says that politics are a mistake in the paper, and 
that I ought to have a column for society gossip. 
I always keep all this correspondence from worrying 
my husband. Don’t you notice how James abhors 
the ‘Family Sympathiser?’” 

“Very ungrateful of James,” thought Zina, who 
had noticed the look of slight annoyance ontheex-pro- 
fessors’s face whenever that vulgar-looking journal 
was mentioned in his presence. 


104 ^ Waking . 

James had the air of a martyr who could not help 
feeling desolate in the circumscribed space in which 
he seemed to find it difficult to breathe, and amid 
the simple surroundings of the unpretending cottage, 
with the dull britannia metal forks and spoons, 
unbreakable plates and tumblers, small allowance of 
candles, and the piece de resistance in the way of 
a tough leg of mutton. The ivy-covered, plastered 
walls were unquestionably in want of ventilation, 
and the thatched roof was a mass of straw, in a 
more or less rotten condition. To hear James talk, 
you might have thought that the little dwelling to 
which his wife had brought him was a very Pandora’s 
box of all the evils ; and yet Mary had prepared a 
special sanctum for him, with embroidered hangings, 
in which he might take his siestas in peace, or pursue 
his scientific and literary studies. Cards were 
brought in for Mr. Carruthers’ edification in the 
evenings, and his wife seemed never to weary of the 
eternal game of picquet, which she played to please 
her husband. And yet there were times when Mary 
had her depressed moods, though these never 
betrayed themselves in irritable speech. 

“Pot-boiling is always pot-boiling,” she would 
say, with a little laugh at her own expense; “but 
what would you have? I have no literary connec- 
tion, no big lions to call on me, and no fine house 
to receive them in. — Would you think I was the sort 
of person to produce ‘shilling shockers’ full of blood- 
curdling delight? And I mustn’t introduce fact- 
people are scared at fact — you must dress it up 
and make it look pretty. The real is too tragic. 
Why should I plod on with it, if there were not so 
many little mouths to feed ? As it is, I go on pro- 
ducing, with confidence in my own mediocrity, 
knowing it to be just the mediocrity which pleases 
the people. My dear, I don’t deceive myself — no 
mysterious ways are revealed to me , no new com- 


A Friend in Need. 105 

binations. I trot on like a hack over the old beaten 
paths, worn with the patient footprints of other 
hacks before me, and such poor renown as I have 
won, such scraps of knowledge as I have picked up 
by the way — are worth nothing, nothing at all !” 

“If everyone were as useful in the world as you 
are ! ” cried Zina, who had already poured out her 
trouble to Mary, exaggerating the gravity of the 
case, and had received the best sort of sympathy, 
which was a dose of common-sense. 

“I should not plod on,” said Mrs. Carruthers, “if 
we were not straitened in circumstances, but I am 
not one of those who believe that the ‘Lord will 
provide/ when ordinary human means have not 
been tried to avert a disaster. That is nonsense. 
We must do our best, and then we may ask for 
help. It would be hard to have to fight the world 
alone,” she added, with the unwonted tears coming 
into her eyes, “even if I were supematurally gifted ; 
and you know that I never believe I am particu- 
larly clever. Sometimes I am sad, and then — 

‘My critic Jobson recommends more mirth, 

Because a cheerful genius suits the time.’ 

“They say they are going to form a society of critics 
— perhaps that will help us. Who knows? If we 
could only look to someone whose criticism would 
be a real criterion — a brevet-mark of merit — but 
then you know with me that there must be the guinea 
stamp as well ; and it is humiliating for me to have 
only to think of what will sell,” she added with a 
very wry face. “But it is not worth being woe- 
begone about — it is my own fault — I have no pig- 
ments with which to paint, like your absolute reds, 
yellows, and blues, and I have no time to grind my 
colours — half the mischief is a want of time.” 

Zina too was somewhat unwillingly taking her 
part in all this pushing and struggling which was 


106 A Waking, 

so new a thing to women — this beating of restless 
hands against a closed door — a door which now and 
then opened to some of the more importunate but 
could only admit a few. And every time it opened 
some of those who pressed most closely to it fell 
in the rush and scuffle beneath the feet of the more 
successful, and were trodden down till the life was 
crushed out of them ; whilst newcomers, undeterred 
by the misfortune which had happened to their 
neighbours, were continually swelling the crowd — 
the cruel crowd which, undismayed, trod corpses 
under foot, and pressed on — ever on — in the terrible 
warfare for fame and bread. And what was it, after 
all, even if fame did come to them, a year or two, 
and then the grave and the silence of oblivion. So 
thought Zina while still haunted by the morbid 
melancholy of past experiences. But day by day 
she was growing stronger, and looked at things 
with different eyes. 

Her youth, and her good constitution had already 
conquered, bringing her calm and refreshing sleep, 
and it was now some time since she had lain sleep- 
less through the hours of the nights in a wide- 
eyed fatigue which compelled her to read to stifle 
the thoughts chasing each other through her fevered 
brain. She prided herself on the philosophy taught 
by her father, and considered that it was her turn to 
speak cheerily to the over-worked high priestess whose 
duty it was to minister to the bourgeoisie of virtue. 
For it was not often that the brave little woman 
allowed herself to wander into these helpless per- 
sonal digressions. And Zina, who had been won- 
derfully successful with her own decorative work, 
looked at her for a minute without answering, the 
catch in her friend’s voice making her own throat 
ache with sympathetic pain. Mary Carruthers sat 
watching the fire burn itself out, and thinking how 
often in her girlhood she had built fairy-tales as she 


A Friend in Need, 


107 


looked into the dying embers, and dreamt of success. 
Life was not so much of a fairy-tale now, with her 
big baby downstairs needing his luxuries, the little 
ones upstairs clamouring for their numerous wants, 
and the middle-class public which she had undertaken 
to amuse, the biggest baby of all, and the most 
imperative, calling, “Dance for me, pipe for me, 
transport me into fairyland and make me forget 
my worries.” 

“Do you think,” she said, with a half-hysterical 
laugh, “ that I like having to initiate people into 
the mysteries of bone-boiling and bill-reducing? 
Oh, how gladly would I be rich! It was not only 
for my husband's sake that I came here, but because 
I wanted to be revitalised in some fresher air, instead 
of being a mere cockney hack; but sometimes it 
seems to me as if my scribbling is still a paltry 
waste of time.” 

Zina tried in vain to remind her of her attempts 
to remedy crying abuses, and to aid the weak in 
their battle with the strong ; and said it was a good 
thing to have had no part in the clever and corrupt- 
ing books written by some of her sex. Mary only 
shook her head. There was something comical in 
the poor little woman trying to appraise her own 
value coolly and critically — her place in the 19th 
century compared to the ages which had preceded 
it, her relativity even to the future, in which the race 
and the appreciation of the true duties of woman- 
hood would be more perfect — and saying, with a 
determined shake of her head, “ I am outside the 
ring of the people who are really worth anything, 
and it is more or less a ring now, both in literature 
and in art ; I am bound to turn out trash to please 
my publishefs; they say the public like it, and the 
people at the bookstalls like it; they must have that 
sort of stuff — if I did not provide it somebody else 
would.” 


io8 


A Waking . 


Meanwhile, Zina herself was no longer sitting in 
listless indifference. Her want of will and want of 
nerve-power had disappeared. Not content with 
her decorative painting, she had taken again to the 
studies which she had pursued in Rome — the only 
difficulty being that Mary Carruthers had to furnish 
her model for a saint. 

Now, though it would have been difficult to find 
a woman whose method of living was more con- 
formable to the teaching of Christ, Mary Carruthers 
did not make a good saint. You could not fancy 
a saint who had once had piquant features and who 
was now faded and pinched after a weary struggle 
for bread. 

„ Saints must always have long noses and look down 
on the ground; you couldn’t fancy the beatings of their 
hearts quickened one bit; you are quite sure from 
the look of their faces that they have sluggish cir- 
culations” said Mary, dissatisfied when she caught a 
glimpse of her own face. “ Yet you paint in the 
right way. The secret is to paint for the mere 
love of one’s art ; as one would paint if one 
were the only being in the world' who had the 
gift of sight, and as if a trembling took pos- 
session of one till the thing which one saw was 
recorded on canvas. You will make your mark in 
the world.” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


"THE COMMON ROUND.* 

So the two women mutually comforted and encou- 
raged each other. It was a case, as Zina said, of 
“caw me and I’ll caw thee,” though never was 
there a truer illustration of George Eliot’s words, 
that “opinion” is a “poor cement” between human 
souls. 

Mary’s exalted ideas had ceased to interest Zina, 
who only thought of them as human fictions, valid 
for mental states other than her own. And amongst 
the bitter recollections, which lowered her when she 
thought of them, was that of her hour of humiliation 
when she had called on the dead to help her. No 
savage, as she told herself, could have debased him- 
self more absurdly. 

“Oh! my dear, my dear,” Mary had said to her 
friend on her first arrival — “it is terrible to hear you 
talk so. Anything rather than to allow yourself to 
dwell on the mere material side of existence ! I do 
not need anyone to prove a future life to me. I 


I 10 


A Waking . 


know it, ” she cried, looking up with her clear eyes, 
and a confident smile which from any other woman 
would have seemed to Zina in her present mood 
like irony. 

But Mary dropped her voice, so fearful was she 
of hurting by word of hers that sensitive great-eyed 
creature of whom in her prosperous days, when she 
came to her with outstretched hands, smiling face, 
and beautifully dressed, she had conceived so great 
an admiration, and of whom even now she stood 
a little in awe. 

“Dear Lord — help her in thine own good time — 
for I can do nothing, ” prayed the elder woman. “ Let 
not the hardness of Thy creatures turn her against 
Thee.” 

And when the blossoms re-appeared on the trees, 
and the voice of the cuckoo was heard again in 
the fields, a softening of the heart came to Zina. 
Mary’s optimism did not seem so strange to her at 
that season of the year. 

How could any painting, any music or any poetry 
render the effect of the sap of the spring, the sense 
of intoxicating life, the mystery of birth, the ravish- 
ment of existence? What art could interpret the 
tones of those exquisite greens, and those blossoms 
on the trees which stooped to meet the blossoms 
on the flowery meads? 

The chestnut leaves were just unfolded from their 
sticky buds, fully out, but limp and hanging verti- 
cally as if wearied with the effort of birth ; the 
foliage of the sycamore was emerging from dainty 
sheaths, the pear and cherry trees were in bridal white, 
the apple-blossom beginning to flush rosy red, and the 
lilac deepening in colour before its clustered tassels 
were shaken out — clusters so difficult to paint when 
the beauty of a flower is made up of many sweet- 
scented units. And besides all this the flute-like 
notes of the blackbird and the merrier trill of the 


The Common Round, 


chaffinch were beginning to make fresh revelry 
round Mary’s house. And Zina felt as if she might 
be happy if she could only forget the past, and be 
satisfied with the mediocrity of the family life around 
her. For, after all, Mary’s home was a little unsat- 
isfying for one who yearned after the ideal. The 
small troubles and worries of everyday life absorbed 
Mrs. Carruthers as they absorb the majority of wives, 
and there were days when Zina longed after some- 
thing more cultured than even the Professor’s 
society. 

She was hardly able to keep her temper when 
she found that Mary’s best sealskin jacket had to 
be cut up to make a fur-lined coat for the Professor, 
or that the old pedant was taking advantage of his 
too-confiding wife, and threatening her with giving 
up that effort of will which Schopenhauer had declared 
to be necessary to life. 

“If he were to cease to will!” said Mary with 
tears, whilst Zina answered irritably, 

“ Don’t let us talk nonsense, I should like to 
make a bonfire of the whole of that dismal philo- 
sophy! The gospel of despair, and propounded by 
a wretch who wore out the patience of his own 
mother, and kicked the only other woman who was 
good enough to tolerate him down the stairs. A 
gospel ever so watery would be better than that ! ” 

She was determined to take no part in the attempt 
to make out that life is worse than it was supposed 
to be, and tried to shake herself out of a dull dis- 
gust for which she told herself she had no excuse, 
with the noisy and sometimes squabbling^ children 
(was it their fault — did not all children squabble?) 
and the selfish husband of whom Mary invariably 
made the best. It was so good of her friend to 
continue to offer her any asylum — that she, being 
in the case of a beggar who had no right to be a 
chooser — did not like to acknowledge, even in hef 


1 12 


A Waking . 


most depressed moods, the dulness, induced by the 
domestic interior, which occasionally came upon her. 

She had seldom joined in the cry of emanci- 
pated women, but the Professor throned in state with 
his family worshipping him excited her irony as well 
as her laughter. Long afterwards she was vexed with 
herself for attaching so much importance to the 
small eccentricities caused by the weakness of his 
health. He coughed when he wanted anything ; he 
made cabalistic signs pointing to the door or to the 
various articles of food, and it was understood that 
his children were to interpret these signs. 

Zina had her own private opinion that the state 
of his health would have been better if the floors 
had not been covered with cocoa-nut-matting or the 
doors supplied with india-rubber fastenings in defer- 
ence to his acute nervous system. 

Poor Mary was continually waging warfare with 
her neighbours because a dog barked or a cock 
crowed in a neighbouring garden. But when Mary’s 
children were relieved from the presence of their 
father, they all talked together and clamoured for 
the same things. 

To the wife and mother it always seemed as if 
her husband and children were perfect, but Zina 
could not be expected to see them through such 
rose-coloured glasses. 

Why did James Carruthers always find such fault 
with small things ? He looked picturesque enough, 
with his Aaron beard, and long melancholy face, 
but his constant complainings were like droppings 
calculated to wear out a stone? And why were 
the children, who had made such a picturesque group 
with their mother — when Zina had occasionally visited 
them — so difficult to live with? Why did they inter- 
fere with one’s palette and lose one’s best brushes? 
Why had they such loud unmusical voices, why did 
the maid-of-all-work go about with a dirty face 


The Common Round. 


and why did Mary herself have sometimes ink on 
her fingers? 

Zina felt that Mrs. Carruthers was braver and 
stronger than herself, but for that very reason she 
could scarcely expect her friend to sympathise with 
her fastidious dislikes. 

Mary’s own troubles were rarely acknowledged, 
or found the ready relief of tears. The drops were 
easily brushed away, and she was brave again. 

Thus it was that Zina could not help welcoming 
a letter, kinder in tone than usual, which came from 
Eva Capern, saying that she was suffering from 
a nerve-breakdown owing to the fatigue of too 
much dissipation, and that her London physician 
had ordered her to travel and to cheer herself up as 
well as she could with perpetual change of scene. 

Her husband, who seemed to be always busied 
about money matters, had gone off to America to 
see about some investment which - caused him 
anxiety. Eva wrote that she did not expect him back 
till the autumn, and that perhaps it was all the better, 
as she was too knocked up to be a pleasant com- 
panion to anyone. Yet as Mr. Capern could not 
accompany her, she counted on Zina, and took it for 
granted that she would not be so unamiable as to 
desert her in the emergency. 

“ She used to be very difficult to deal with, but 
she can have nothing more to do with pride now, 
situated as she is,” said Mrs. Capern to herself with 
unconscious vulgarity, as she wrote her note. “ She 
is leading a make-shift sort of a life and must be 
glad of the chance of a change from it. It is realty 
provoking to think how many good chances she 
threw on one side, and now people reflect on me, 
as if I had thrown her off. ” 

James Carruthers was just then weaker than 
usual, and Zina, who had begun to fear that her 
protracted stay might be a drag upon her friends, 


A Waking. 


114 

fell in with Eva’s proposal, the more so that Mary 
urgently recommended it, declaring that a visit to 
the Riviera, Italy, and afterwards to Switzerland — 
for that was Mrs. Capern’s programme — would be 
the very thing for Zina. 

Eva received her somewhat coldly, though she had 
written gushingly, and Zina, who had intended to 
take up the acquaintance just as she had left it 
in her father’s lifetime, suddenly “dried up,” as 
Mary’s boys would have said, at the reception 
which was unexpected, and evidently intended to 
put her in a new position. 

* Your appearance is more presentable than could 
have been expected, considering how you have been 
hiding yourself,” said Eva with a shrug ; “ but you 
must not refuse to let me give you some new 
dresses — and you really want a little feeding up; 
you’ll soon be diaphanous at this rate ; you look as 
if you could tast no Shadow.” Eva herself was by 
no means diaphanous in spite of her “ nerve-break- 
down,” and her hair seemed to have grown yel- 
lower, and her cheeks a little pinker. 

Zina declined the offer of the dresses, wondering 
somewhat cynically what the hidden motive could 
be which made Eva long for her company. Pos- 
sibly it was to provide herself with an effective 
foil in beauty of a darker and severer, as well as a 
thinner type, possibly to furnish her with an oppor- 
tunity for patronising. It never occurred to Zina 
to reflect that, whatever her antecedents might be, 
her appearance was eminently respectable, and that 
she, at least, would not need rose-coloured blinds 
for the windows of her sitting-room, in the hotels 
in which Mrs. Capem would want her for a com- 
panion, whilst her respectability might give a touch 
of decorum to Eva’s follies. 

Mrs. Capem’s laugh was strange and false, as she 
said, “You cannot possibly go on supporting your- 


The Common Round , 


self by this miserable painting. We must find you 
a husband — an eligible parson, you know — to make 
the best of both worlds. Oh, I forgot, your father 
did not believe in that sort of thing, and neither 
did you; but of course you will keep that to your- 
self when we travel. It would not sound well, and 
I have always thought there must be a sense of 
security in having a clergyman-husband to get one 
out of any difficulties, and pave one’s way to heaven.” 

Zina’s eyes flashed, but she had learnt from Mary 
to be tolerant. Nor did she need to subject herself 
to much of this sort of talk. If she were to accept 
Eva’s offer, and find her panacea in travelling — 
trying to patch up the strength which had certainly 
been impaired — she knew well enough that it would 
not do for her to be thin-skinned. But she was 
obstinately determined to accept no presents from 
Eva, and even insisted on taking her old valise with 
its ragged, worn-out leather, gaping at the sides, the 
only box she had left for herself after the sale of 
her father’s furniture. She preferred to travel as 
the poor dependant, if she were to travel at all. 

Eva had to comfort herself with the fact that the 
hand baggage was more presentable — the cloaks 
and umbrellas being covered with a wrapper which 
Zina had embroidered herself. The latter had to 
cure herself of the habit of being easily jarred. And 
though there was that in Mrs. Capern’s manner 
which reminded her of the fact that she was one of 
the disinherited, driven out as an exile from a 
luxurious home — a recollection which she had lost 
at the Carruthers’ house, where there had been 
nothing to remind her of it — she was conscious of 
being glad to avail herself of the change. It gave 
her almost a feeling of ingratitude to Mary to 
acknowledge that she was glad, even when she had 
to wait upon the soi-disant invalid with her wraps 
and cushions on the Calais boat, where the sea — not 


A Waking . 


1 16 

monotonous in tint as some ot our seascapes 
represent it, but changeful as the wind and flying 
cloud above it — brought light to her eye and colour 
to her cheek. She began already to feel a different 
woman when, as Mrs. Capern’s companion, she drove 
through the thronged Boulevards. 

In the old days she had not been partial to Paris, 
which had seemed to her like the great bustling 
mart of the world, but now she saw it with different 
eyes. The crowd of well-dressed people was amus- 
ing, and even the sop fronts were exciting. 


CHAPTER XV. 


THE ANDREA DEL SARTO. 

Long years had passed since Zina had travelled, 
as quite a young girl, and had taken her lessons 
in painting at a studio in Rome, and she was 
astonished to find how little the years had changed 
her. There were the same quick pulsations of her 
heart, the same excitement of her lively brain, the 
same sense of exhilaration in the presence of some- 
thing new, though she had told herself that she 
could never feel in the same way again. The thrill 
of w'onder was still as great as when she had looked 
forward to her coming life. For she was still young 
enough to be the victim of moods ; too young to 
be world-weary ; and too energetic to be tired of the 
life which she believed to be her only one, looking 
into the future with many a pang of doubt. There 
is nothing so mercurial as this sense of youth, which 
is not, after all, so much a matter of age as it is 
dependent on keeping the links between man and 
nature unsevered. 


1 1 8 A Waking. 

Zina was acutely alive to all those manifestations 
of nature which affect our senses and stir our 
blood. And as she passed with Mrs. Capern along 
that wonderful fringe of coast, which lies basking 
like a flower-bed between the mountains and the 
tideless sea, with the air clear, and the sun bright 
— the land of pine-forests, of aloes, and of palms, 
with the deciduous vegetation beginning to stir into 
green^-she seemed to hear Goethe’s words, “ Children, 
turn back to Life; let the fresh air dry your tears ! ” 
She no longer looked back with morbid self-reproach 
upon the scenes connected with her father’s death- 
bed ; her common-sense laughing to scorn the nervous 
fancies caused by over-fatigue and her conscience 
reminding her that her motives had been blameless. 
And she no longer allowed herself to regret the 
defection of Stephen Dewe; that he suspected her 
was proof enough that he had not been worthy of her. 

She congratulated herself on the fact that Eva 
Capern’s illness did not interfere with the rapidity 
of her travelling. Cannes, Nice, Mentone, Monte 
Carlo, San Remo — all were visited in turns ; then 
Eva was still restless, hurrying on past the Mari- 
time Alps to Florence and Venice. All was delight- 
ful to Zina; nothing came amiss, not even the less 
comfortable bedroom which sometimes fell to her 
share, after Mrs. Capern and her maid had been 
housed — with red-bricked floor, cold to the feet, and 
representations of pert little Cupids on the roughly- 
painted ceilings, or a brazier of coal for a fire. The 
wooded mountains, the tall campaniles, the olives 
with their silvery underleaves, the oleanders, the 
orange-trees with their golden fruit, and even the 
melancholy cypresses, all sang the same song, 
“ Children, turn back to Life ! ” The enthusiasm 
handed down since Sappho sang the divine wood- 
song that “ Hesiodand Homer heard, ” seemed to inspire 
her heart and carry her back to the old simple times. 


The Andrea del Sarto. 119 

Everything was fresh and new; the little houses 
which looked like cardboard decorations, the oxen 
such as the ancients bred, the women with their 
distaffs — too utterly foolish and behind the times, 
but idyllic with rural life ; the bees murmuring from 
the thymey hills; the boys and girls singing anti- 
phonal songs, as they drove their mules into the 
vineyards, munching figs and bread ; the old-fashion- 
ed agricultural instruments instead of modem 
steam improvements ; the scythes, which needed 
sharpening and yet glittered like children’s toys ; 
and all these simple-hearted people, sleek and merry 
enough to upset the theories of modern political 
economists. 

“The great thing is to be healthy both in mind 
and body, ” she wrote to Mary. “No doubt you 
will be vexed with me, but more than ever I am 
inclined to envy the ancient Greeks, whose very 
religion was a joyous one, and well free from the 
tormenting maladies of cynicism and disillusion.” 

Leaving the villages and reaching the cities seemed 
almost like returning to the evils of our more com- 
plicated civilisation; but here again were the old- 
world associations — the cathedrals with deep blood- 
stained glass, the sweet marble faces, spared by 
the iconoclasts, sleeping unmolested through the 
ages, with a wealth of gilding and fioritura even 
on the tombs. Zina had been familiar years before 
with the pictures and statuary of Florence, but 
whenever she could creep away from Mrs. Capern, 
who was somewhat exigeante , she would hug herself 
into delicious forgetfulness of all past vexations, 
feeling how small and how fanciful had been many 
of her morbid tremors, in the presence of the Raphaels 
the Titians, the Murillos, the Botticellis, and the 
Ghirlandajos. 

There are periods of spiritual convalescence after 
some of the fevers of life, which are as delicious in 


120 


A Waking . 


their way as physical convalescence. And Zina was 
recovering-, slowly, tranquilly, dreamily, yet delight- 
fully in these restful hours of liberty. 

It was easy to gain time for such liberty before 
Eva had left her bedroom, for Eva’s toilette mys- 
teries were becoming more and more elaborate. 
Thus it happened one morning that, seated amongst 
the art treasures in the Tribune of the Uffizi, after 
satiating herself with beauty, she began to look 
round at her fellow-creatures. For if the infinite 
variety of nature had attracted her on her travels, 
the uncertainty and unconventionality of life had 
also attracted her — the people coming and going 
one knew not whence or whither and the table- 
cThotes frequented by types of every nation. 

It was her habit to sit and watch the living pic- 
tures as well as the painted ones for hours, paying 
them the subtle compliment of appreciative silence. 

These shifting scenes impressed her imagination 
and amused her. Since she had lived with Mary 
Carruthers she had become interested in character- 
isation, that imaginative faculty in the observer 
which enables him to use the physical as the index 
of the spiritual. “ The question is how a thing or 
a person strikes you,” as she used to say to Mary 
when she tried to coax her out of her despondent 
moods. “ You may not be able, like George Meredith, 
for instance, to crystallise the analysis in an image, 
but you can at least tell how it struck you, you 
individually ; and first impressions are generally the 
truest ones.” 

Reading and painting after all were not like living 
human beings, and though her first thought in the 
mornings for some time past had been, “ Oh, to be out 
and alone with power to draw fresh breaths and look 
at beautiful things for oneself,” yet there were times 
when she was conscious of a strange new longing 
for a warmth of contact with some real human soul. 


The Andrea del Sarto. 


21 


It was not Eva’s fault that she could not un bosom 
herself to her — Eva who chiefly lived to be the 
cynosure of all eyes, and who formed for herself 
an amusing sort of mental and unreal atmosphere 
like the heavy odour of patchouli which she always 
left behind her. She took Eva as she was and 
never thought of blaming her now. 

The Tribune was very full just then. There was 
the usual gathering of British matrons with their 
comfortable husbands; of English girls and boys, 
most of them well-dressed, with good complexions 
and good teeth, and thinking quite as much about 
themselves as the pictures; of piquantes French- 
women, good-natured Dutch, stolid Germans, bright- 
eyed Italians, and there was a group of other men 
and women whom she found it difficult to label, as 
they dressed like the French, looked pleased like 
the Dutch, and had something of the self-sufficiency 
of the English, while they talked each language 
equally well; probably they were Russians. But 
just as Zina was deciding this knotty point, and 
thinking how she, of all persons, should make 
friends with the Russians, whose acquaintance she 
had only made through Tolstoi’s books, and won- 
dering whether she should ever know whether her 
mother had been a Pole or a Russian, she was 
startled by finding a pair of dark scrutinising eyes 
fixed upon hers. The eyes, which belonged to a 
man of striking appearance, apparently about thirty-five 
years old, were very dark, corresponding with the 
hair, which was also dark, but already touched with 
grey. The figure was distinguished-looking, though 
it was only of middle height, its erect bearing*, as 
well as the sunburnt complexion, conveying the 
idea of one who was a practised athlete, and had 
led an active life. But it was the expression of 
the penetrating eyes which made Zina feel uncom- 
fortable. Something seemed to pass from them to 


122 


A Waking. 


her, and she immediately changed her seat, saying 
to herself, nervously, “I wish people would not 
stare; it is one thing to make observations quietly 
as I do, and quite another to stare.” 

By the time she had changed her seat the stranger 
was no longer gazing at her. His eyes were 
fixed on the Andrea del Sarto, and then once more, 
as if unintentionally, he looked back at Zina. 

This time she rose and went quickly out of the 
room, mentally accusing the man of rudeness. For 
there was no one to tell her that there was a won- 
derful resemblance between her own face and that 
of the Virgin in Andrea’s celebrated group. In 
breadth of brow and the size and shape of the 
eyes, if the colouring was not exactly the same, 
and even in the very curves of the lips and set 
of the head, there was a likeness not to be mis- 
taken. A likeness, and yet a difference, for instead 
of the peace in the countenance of the Virgin, there 
was a peculiar, undefinable expression in Zina’s face 
which seemed to separate her from other people as 
if she had suffered something which does not happen 
to ordinary women. There was a shade in the eyes, 
a droop of the lips, and a proud dignity of the 
whole bearing which gave her what her friends 
called her “ Sphinx-like look. ” A man who saw her 
for the first time was likely to be startled by this 
unexpected expression. There was something about 
Zina which continually roused curiosity. But polite- 
ness generally kept curiosity within bounds, and 
Zina resented it angrily when she reached the door 
of the building, and found that by the time she had 
been given her umbrella, and stood in the open air, 
she was face to face with this stranger. He lifted 
his hat as if in apology and walked in a contrary 
direction, but not before his eyes had again sought 
hers with the same intentness which startled her 
before, and she had time to notice that in the full 


The Andrea del Sarto. 


123 


light they were not only dark but of a deep blue 
which was unusual. 

She was annoyed by the episode, but did not 
think of mentioning it to Eva, whose jokes on such 
subjects were amongst the drawbacks of her tour. 

“ He looked at me intently, I suppose, because he is 
an artist — artists and doctors have a way of looking 
at people as if they were lay-figures and one woman 
was as good as another — we are all possible models ; 
I ought to know that,” she said to herself as she 
made her way back to her hotel. 

The affair would have been dismissed quietly 
from her memory, had she not encountered the same 
gaze a few days afterwards, when at Venice she 
was floating in a gondola down the Grand Canal 
past the Church of St. Maria della Salute, to the 
steps of St. Mark’s. She was in the height of her 
enjoyment in fairy-like Venice, watching the silvery 
stars come out over the Moorish towers, when the 
opaline tints had faded and gleams from lighted 
windows streamed down on the rippling waves, 
when suddenly she became aware that another gondola 
was slipping along ghost-like by the side of their 
own, and was startled from her dream on the bosom 
of the shadowy waters by recognising the same eyes 
once more as earnestly fixed on her own. 

“Who is that? What a handsome man!” ex- 
claimed Eva, who, in one of her prettiest toilettes, 
was reclining on the cushions in her wax-like beauty. 
She was in a position of perfect ease, silent and 
almost somnolent with the dolce far niente which 
suited her so well, listening to the music on the 
canal, where contadini were chanting their ditties 
in gondolas gaily lit with lamps ; but she started up 
as she asked the question “Did you meet him in 
London ? ” with more interest than she had yet shewn 
in all the architectural glories of the old-world city. 

7ina responded faintly, shaking her head and 


24 


A Waking . 


shrugging her shoulders. She had never any thought 
of making a confidante of her chaperon, but some- 
how she felt uncomfortable at the idea that the 
stranger might possibly be following them, unable 
to resist the impression which impelled him onwards. 

“I never heard his name, but I believe he was 
in Florence when we were there,” she answered, 
telling all that she could tell. And even that little 
was drowned in the echo of a chorus, which float- 
ing past them with the gleam of coloured lamps 
from another gondola, jarred on Eva’s nerves. 

“ They sing too loud, and they are awfully, hor- 
ribly out of time,” she cried putting her hands to 
her pretty ears, as the barcarole of another set of 
lazy rowers who were rowing away in the distance 
clashed with the chorus. Had it not been for her 
languor she would have preferred the Piazza of San 
Marco with its cafes and colonnades, its brilliant 
shop-fronts, its ices and its chocolates. 

And she forgot to ply her companion with any 
more questions as they in their turn floated out on 
the liquid plain of water in the direction of the Lido, 
where the light was still clear enough for them to 
see the distant gray lagunes with trembling mysterious 
shadows, the brilliancy of the stars, and the lanterns 
glittering in the gondolas. 

“ Perhaps he found out our names at Florence, 
and it would be very easy to track us to Venice,” 
Zina could not help thinking, though she tried to 
dismiss the subject from her thoughts, and to take 
the same interest as before in the beautiful queen- 
like city which once had been mistress of the seas. 
“ Perhaps, after all, he is not an artist, but some 
unhappy creature who has never yet seen his ideal, 
and is never likely to see it.” 


CHAPTER XVI. 


A MEETING AT SAAS-F&E. 

It was a month afterwards. Eva Capern and 
Zina Newbolt had found their way to the Swiss 
mountains. There seemed to be no better place of 
refuge during the warm months, and though Mrs. 
Capern spoke scornfully of these days of “circular 
tickets v when one might have to sit next to vulgar 
nobodies at table d’ holes, she made a virtue of 
necessity. 

Zina had no possible objection. The past had 
now quite ceased to be a burden on her memory; 
she could look back upon it more than ever without 
self-reproach, and could even laugh at herself for 
the morbid hours in her life when the veil had 
seemed to be lifted from the face of Destiny, revealing 
the stem spectre of. Despair. 

The life in her was so intense that it seemed 
almost ridiculous for her to recollect how she had 
once wished to end it all; the Lebens- Glucks eligkeit, 


A Waking . 


1 2 6 

as the Germans call it, had returned to her in such 
full force. And she had become, so accustomed to 
wandering that she could make herself at home in 
almost every hotel, adorning her own little box of 
a bedroom with her photographs in plush frames, 
her sketches of the scenery, her pieces of artistic 
needlework, and her dictionaries and books in 
different languages. Many of these things had been 
given to her by Eva, but it was characteristic of 
her altered mood that she no longer resented Eva’s 
desire to patronise her, or to give her cheap presents. 

For even Mrs. Capern and her ways had become 
more tolerable to her, as she learned by degrees 
to forget her surroundings, and to adapt herself to 
the more ordinary phases of life. 

And once more, at a table-d’ hote at Saas-Fee, 
when she was joining in the ordinary light chatter 
of the dinner-table, tackling in German a bearded 
individual who sat next to her, she became con- 
scious that the same man whom she had met at 
Venice and Florence was sitting opposite to her 
and gazing admiringly at her beautifully cut features. 
The glance was respectful; there was' nothing to 
resent in it ; for he, too, was making feeble attempts 
at conversation with a German Marguerite with long 
straw-coloured tails of hair, who sat on his right hand — 
one of a row of schoolgirls who had come up for a 
few days from Lausanne, and whose mistress, in a 
stiff black dress, was seated at the end of the table. 

She could sympathise with him in these efforts, 
for she always tried to make friends with the people 
of different nations, now that she no longer felt like 
an inhabitant of some distant planet come newly to 
this Earth, whose time was short, and who was 
breathlessly studying everything. 

There were some of the usual habituSs of a Swiss 
Hotel, though the season was only beginning. 

There were typical Englishmen of the climbing 


A Meeting at Saas-Fe'e. 


127 


sort at the crowded dinner- table : young men who 
were clear-skinned, clean-limbed, and bright-eyed, 
with an air of independence which proclaimed them 
equally at home in all parts of the world. But the 
new comer was not a typical Englishman. He never 
relapsed into the cold and reserved islander, but 
addressed the people around him apparently with 
equal indifference, drawing one after another into 
conversation — Zina amongst the rest, leaving her 
no excuse for not answering him with that dignity 
and repose of manner and that perfect self-possession 
which had been characteristic of her in her best days. 

She could not know that he was like a billiard-player, 
who by long practice and skilfulness of hand could 
calculate the exact angle at which his ball would 
rebound, and that all the world was a sort of billiard-ta- 
ble on which he liked to play ; nor that while it pleased 
him to pass for a man of culture, he was capricious, 
fanciful, and even a little disdainful, expecting women 
to like him the better for his cynicism. 

“ What a goose I was to imagine that Mr. Layton 
stared at me more than other people ! Probably 
what happened at Florence was purely accidental,” 
she said to herself after a day or two, during which 
time George Layton had managed to secure the 
seat which was next to her at the table-d’hote, and 
she had taken him into confidence about a good 
many of their fellow creatures who afforded her amuse- 
ment. Such, for instance, as the Dutchman who 
made his bow as if pulled by strings like the card- 
board dolls they sell at fancy bazaars, or the dear 
good English matrons with stiff erections on their 
heads which they dignified by the name of caps, 
but which invariably made the foreign ladies shrug 
their shoulders and whisper “ Voila l y Anglaise,” when 
one of them entered the room. 

“ There are various types amongst Englishwomen, ” 
he said sententiously, not thinking it necessary to 


128 


A Waking . 


explain that just now he was spending a good deal 
of his time in trying to analyse the harmonious 
impression which the mere appearance of this uncon- 
ventional countrywoman of his had left on his imagin- 
ation. Had he done so it is possible that she 
would have explained she was not entirely of 
English blood. For he understood the art of drawing 
people out, with a perception which was more lively, 
owing to the habits of travel, than it generally is 
under the murkiness of English skies, and he knew 
the stimulating influence of the friction of mind with 
mind. Thus it happened that in the course of a day 
or two — during which Eva had not been idle, but 
had found out that Mr. Layton was not only a large 
landed proprietor in England, but was connected 
“with some of the best people” — George Layton 
had also made his inquiries. He had not only discov- 
ered that Miss Newbolt had suffered, and that there 
were times when her voice had a tremor of pain in 
it still, but that she stood so very much alone in 
the world, that the gay little woman who patronised 
her and gave herself airs about her, would be glad 
to see her happily married, if it were only to free 
her conscience from any feeling of responsibility. 

The little chaperon, who was ready to flirt with 
anyone, was of a type as nauseous as it was 
familiar to George Layton. He hated her seductive 
smiles as he hated her style of dress, which was too 
showy for the mountains. He despised her artifici- 
ality as he despised her shallow pretensions to an 
intellect she did not possess. In the “ set ” in which 
he had mixed from early manhood, women more or 
less like Mrs. Capern were as common as blackber- 
ries in September. He invited them, he made much 
of them, and talked against them, behind their backs. 
But there was an absence of filigree about the other 
woman, and she held him in conversation, uncon- 
sciously expectant of what she would say next Her 


A Meeting at Saas-Fde. 129 

efforts to elude him piqued his vanity. For she still 
pursued her study of painting, escaping from other 
people whenever the exigeante Eva would allow 
her to do so, and making no secret of the fact that 
she would probably be dependent on this art for 
getting her bread. 

Zina had been accustomed to climb the easier 
ascents, hampered a little by her palette and paint- 
box, in search of picturesque chatets and sunset 
effects. And it seemed to be one of the curiously 
fortuitous circumstances connected with her con- 
stant meetings with Mr. Layton, from the very 
time she had first come across him in Florence, that 
he too should be one day climbing up to these 
picturesque ehalets just as she was putting the last 
touches to her work. She had long ceased to attri- 
bute these meetings to anything but the purest 
accident, and only laughed as she stretched out 
her stiff fing*ers, cramped from the long use of the 
brush, to which she had been so little accustomed 
during the freedom of the last few months. It was 
a long, low laugh, very pleasant to his ears. For, 
as she told him, she liked painting in the open air. 
It was so different from the foggy days when her 
brain had often been weary, and when, in spite of 
Mary’s encouraging criticisms, she had so often 
felt as if the realisation were sadly different from 
her first idea. 

“ I suppose it was hereditary laziness. I had been 
brought up to do nothing, but I used often to feel in 
England as if I could throw paints and brushes into 
the fire. ” 

“Women are easily tempted to give up; owing no 
doubt to the want of education which for centuries 
retarded their evolution,” he answered. 

No one could have detected the slight inflection, 
almost amounting to irony, in the voice, or the senti- 
ment, kept to himself, that women were now being 


A Waking . 


130 

over-educated, but that the social vanity and the 
pettiness of the sex would make it impossible for 
them ever to do much. He smiled at Zina, as he 
gathered up her sketching materials and offered to 
carry them home for her, with a smile which, if it 
had been properly interpreted, would have said that 
if she expected to succeed she would be overrating 
herself very much, but that to discourage her 
would be analogous to crushing a butterfly. He need 
not have been afraid. She was weary of flattery, 
and rather liked the trenchant way in which he spoke. 

“ Hemmed in — circumscribed — with the forces of 
nature against us — what can most of us do?” he 
said, looking round at the mountains; “it is to the 
incapable that things seem easy. The incapable 
like the sham picturesque, the weakly and washily 
pretty, and hate the work which is not recognised, 
the labour which never shews. ” 

After that they had a good deal of talk about 
Turner, Cox, Stanfield, and De Wint; the amateur 
photographers who soiled their fingers with chemic- 
als and so seldom produced anything like a 
landscape after all, because photography could not 
bring mind to bear upon nature, and the weak daubs 
which were so constantly exhibited in public 
picture-galleries. And though her new friend’s 
passion for criticism seemed to Zina carried to an 
extreme, so that he was always able to narcotise 
himself with this criticism , she did not guess 
that in his secret heart he thought such talk more 
or less “drivel.” It was not his way to be ex- 
pausive with women ; he preferred to play with them, 
and, if possible, to “ take the lead ” with them. 

Yet Zina was a new experience to him. He scarce- 
ly knew whether to take her seriously or not, when 
she said, looking at him with the clear eyes which 
made many people lower their own, 

“It is worth painting a little if only with the 


A Meeting at Saas-Fie* 


n 


hope of learning to see\ the majority lose so much. 
But the worst of it is I never can express the quarter 
of what I see. And what is the use of seeing or 
hearing things unspeakable when you areMumb like 
the. old Jewish priest, directly you want to share 
your visions with anyone else. My best efforts are 
always like stammering speech.” 

“ It depends upon whether the emotion is genuine, 
as it seems to be with you — or whether one 
has to get the thing up. I am not an enthusiast,” 
he answered somewhat lamely. He was puzzled 
and at the same time amused. There was an intel- 
lectual force about her which, though it might have 
repelled him under other circumstances, gave 
piquancy to his pursuit of her. It was real and unaf- 
fected. Her youth had been passed amid the “ snows 
of science, ” she had seen a little of the world, and 
had been disenchanted like himself with its pettiness. 
She often despised what other women admired. 

He was much inclined to laugh in his secret heart 
when she stood drawing deep breaths as she looked 
at the landscape, and when she confided to him 
that it hurt her to hear the silly remarks made by 
the majority of people at the sight of beautiful 
scenery — and how the “ Wunderschon /” so con- 
stantly repeated in varying keys by the Germans 
began to jar on her. It seemed to her only pos- 
sible to enjoy in silence or in the presence of some 
sympathetic person, who could stand still and speechless 
like herself, thrilled by the same emotion. He took 
care to act the part of that sympathetic person, 
discussing with her the mystery of that great earth- 
movement which had called these mountains into 
existence, the dislocations, and the metamorphism 
of original structure. He tried to impress her by 
talking very learnedly about these geological 
mysteries, but he found that she knew more about 
the earth-crust than he did. 


132 


A Waking. 


“ She makes no pretensions, but, properly trained, 
she would be the Ninon of Intelligence,” he said, 
a little satirically, quoting Balzac. And yet his 
intercourse with her had all the charm of a voyage 
of discovery, for he was continually finding out 
new powers in her which others had not detected. 
Owing to her father’s prejudices, she had never been 
taught to sing; and yet once, when he ventured 
out to meet her in the woods, he had been attracted 
by a song which seemed to him one of touching 
beauty. The singer was coming nearer to him, the 
trees still hid her; but her voice was growing louder, 
and, though it was untrained, it was true and sweet, 
soaring like a lark in the upper notes, with the 
possibility of a rich timbre in the lower ones. 

“ You did not tell me you were musical ! ” he 
said, feeling like another Columbus as he saun- 
tered up to her, and relieved her of the sketching 
materials which he often carried home for her now. 

And then he was a good deal surprised at the 
sudden cloud which came over her brow. “ Do not 
accuse me of being musical/ 1 she answered. M I used to 
think of music as something that could awaken 
grand and generous impulses, and make one feel 
nobler, stronger, better. But I was mistaken. Nero 
loved music. My father was right. He would never 
have me taught music; he distrusted musical people.” 

It was these sudden changes of manner, this sense 
of mystery about her, making him feel as if he were 
coming in contact with an unmapped country, which 
enhanced her fascination. Her very footfall was 
characteristic — firm as well as light — dignified and 
yet quick — with an unconscious grace of movement, 
unlike that of other women. And these changes 
in her expressive face, from the softness of Andrea 
del Sarto’s Virgin to the grand and severe outlines 
which it could assume in repose — suggesting the 
transition period between the sculpture of Egypt 


A Meeting at Saas-F£e. 


i33 


and the more delicate outlines of Phidias — equally 
attracted him. He, who enjoyed his directing power 
as a man, wished to have the "moulding of this 
enigmatical creature, whose simple dress was the 
expression of herself, varying from day to day, and whose 
features, when they suddenly softened with a glow 
on her cheeks, had even a greater charm than when 
she stood, as she did now, with her head thrown a 
little back, and something powerful but almost cold in 
its outlines, as she cried, “ I distrust musical people” 

“ Then thank Heaven I am not musical,” he said 
in his secret heart. For the longing to win her had 
become wild and irresistible, and he was a man 
who had never been used to control his desires. 

Her first intuition had been correct ; he had tracked 
her from Florence to Venice, and from Venice, 
later on, to Saas-Fee, and — though he had not 
thought it wise to force his society on her at once, 
and had scarcely liked to acknowledge even to 
himself how he had run the woman to earth — he 
had managed to acquaint himself with all her move- 
ments, and had lived for no other purpose since 
the day he first saw her. 

He had known so many women that his taste 
had become jaded ; he had thought himself acquainted 
with every conceivable type ; but now he had found 
out for the first time that his ideal woman must be 
strong as well as agile and graceful; with her heart 
and intellect in unison; cheerful as well as melan- 
choly, as the mood took her — one of Zina’s greatest 
charms consisting in these varying moods. 

Zina had suspected nothing of all this herself; 
but Mrs. Capem had divined it, and was ready 
enough to play into George Layton’s hands. 

It was too evident that she did not wish to be 
saddled with the care of Zina long, and her openly 
avowed desire to get her well married had at former 
times been far from flattering, yet on this occasion 


134 


A Waking. 


she managed her cards as skilfully as Mr. Layton. 

“ Nothing, ” as she sometimes said to her intimate 
friends, “ can be^so gauche as what your blunderers 
please to call straight-forward speech — as if language 
were not given us to conceal our thoughts.” 
Eva’s philosophy was not deep; it could be summed 
up in a few sentences. 

“ If you want to gain a favour never ask it directly ; 
go round and round and you will gain your point. 
If people’s talk shocks you, never let it be seen 
that you are offended by it. If you wish to be 
treated on an equality by millionaires take care 
never to let them guess that you are poorer than 
themselves. Drop your pretty speeches about like 
pearls from the lips of a poet, but never trouble 
your conscience about meaning them. And, above 
all, if you want to humour anyone who is stubborn 
or prejudiced, pretend to think as he or she does, 
and never contradict. ” 

In accordance with these principles, Eva — assuming 
the airs of invalidism, and professing herself unable 
to walk any distance with Miss Newbolt — lent her 
ready assistance to plans for mountain expeditions 
in which she declared herself unable to take part. 

It is true that she would not have been Eva, had 
she not compensated herself for her dulness by playing 
out her own role to perfection in the pension — a 
role which was alternately languishing, sentimental, 
and sensational, and which enabled her to bring her 
eye-batteries to bear on the youngest as well as the 
oldest men in the hotel, reducing a few of them to a 
state of slavery. 

To do her justice — when she took the trouble to 
exert herself— Mrs. Capern could be a pleasant 
talker. Since the day when she had known 
how to adapt herself to Stuart Newbolt’s mental 
atmosphere by picking up scraps of information and 
bringing them in at the right moment, she had laid 


A Meeting at Saas-Fee. 135 

herself out for the art and could explain a few of 
its mysteries. One of her plans in drawing the 
younger men out was to get each of them to talk 
about himself, his own prospects in life, his special 
talents, and his disappointments. She knew how to 
sympathise at the right moment, and to prophesy 
in her softest tones a brilliant future for the disap- 
pointed hero. And as the pretty woman with her 
languid ways roused herself to condole with him, 
to flatter, and to encourage, as if her interest were 
reserved specially for him, each lad in turn was 
wild with admiration. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


A MOUNTAIN-WALK. 

No after-recollections could dim the memory of 
some of these expeditions. There was one in which 
a party, consisting of a German family, and two 
Swiss ladies — old enough to take Zina under their 
care — with George Layton and a couple of guides, 
set out for Monte Moro, intending to see as much 
as possible of the road to Macugnaga. They started 
at an early hour in the afternoon, passing the little 
chapel with models of .arms and legs hanging upon 
its plaster- walls to testify to the naive belief in the 
miraculous powers of St. Joseph. It was a fete day, 
and as the people were returning from their orisons, 
Zina stepped in amongst them beneath the shade of 
the porch, looking at the toy sheep and cows which 
had been brought as simple offerings to shew that 
animals had been cured, or at pictures of whole 
families imploring the saint for healing, with one of the 
members lying in bed surrounded by kneeling bro- 
thers and sisters, and white-bearded St. Joseph 


A Mountain- Walk, 


i37 


looking down from the clouds ready with his benison. 
Gothic windows or stained glass were scarcely need- 
ed here ; the altar- piece, with its tawdry gilding and 
the doll in crinoline, supplying all the needs of the 
superstitious mountain people. Above were other 
pictures, of souls in purgatory — crimson flames 
shooting out from the nether depths, and winged 
angels looking down from the glory above. 

George Layton stood watching, with a shrug which 
seemed to say, “Is it not well we are outgrowing 
these ridiculous delusions of Christendom?” With 
a mocking laugh he followed Zina; it was a part 
of her attraction that she was as free as he was to 
scorn all childish beliefs. 

“ That old hypocrite is paid to teach that hum- 
bug,” he said — almost in the words of her own 
father — as they watched the priest in black gar- 
ments moving about amongst the women with red 
handkerchiefs on their heads. “ The old rogues 
could not eke out their living if it were not for the 
women; but *a woman believes according to her 
feelings’ — so says Alponse Karr. It goes without 
saying that Alphonse never knew you” 

She disliked him for the quotation, and for the 
air with which he quoted it. “Oh, you must make 
excuse for those women,” she answered, impetu- 
ously. “Think of the storms sweeping over the 
roofs of these little Alpine villages, and of the stealthy, 
noiseless sn<3w, choking up the hollows and obliterat- 
ing all the tracks; think of the perils of those drifts, 
and the dread of the noiseless avalanche. If / were 
one of those women, I daresay I should be glad 
enough to cry to all the saints for mercy, and I 
would make the sign of the cross if I could think it 
would help me.” But her dislike to his sneer at 
the expense of her sex was only momentary; she 
had no time to analyse the sentiment. 

The groups about the chapel grew smaller and 


A Waking. 


138 

smaller, for already the party was disappearing from 
view of Saas-Fee. They had a fairly long walk 
before them. First a tramp of two or three miles 
along a flat valley, then a mile by a lake, and 
afterwards — before the sun set— they had an ascent 
to accomplish over snow to the top of the pass. 
The easy walking did not take long, and compara- 
tively soon the little party was climbing the ascent, 
with the village of Saas-im-Grund floating beneath 
them, in grey mysterious depths, amid the mist as 
in mid-ocean. Soon the tops of the houses and the 
little steeple looked like the masts of ships rising 
from surging billows. Above them were rocks and 
crags, with glimpses of chalets on the heights, and 
Zina could gratify her longing to inflate her lungs 
with the air of the uplands, and drink in the breath 
of the mountain sides. The light in her eyes grew 
brighter, her upper lip curled involuntarily. 

“ It makes one feel it is good to live, and it is 
very rarely I feel that” she said with a smile, so 
stirred as to forget her 1 wonted reticence. Layton 
watched her with interest. He himself would have 
preferred to rest after the hurried travelling which 
had been necessary to make him sure of reaching 
Saas-Fee before Mrs. Capern and her companion 
could escape him, instead of running the risk of 
breaking his neck in struggling over passes. But 
there was not much chance of “ breaking his neck " 
in this simple walk. And the lively feeling in 
Zina’s face with the expression of her delight, which 
was so abrupt, as if in spite of herself, were all 
part of those unconscious changes of manner which 
made him feel like exploring an untrodden country. 

The experiences of the night were merry ones. 
For when they reached the chalet in which they 
were to sleep, it was found that the rogue of a 
proprietor had let it over their heads. A number 
of English people had already taken possession, 


A Mountain- Walk. 


139 


and a rubicund face appeared at the window to 
say it was impossible to make room for anyone 
else. Mr. Layton, who was spokesman, insisted 
in reply on accommodation being made for the ladies, 
whilst for his own part he added that the men 
would be content with an outhouse. A rumbling 
was heard within, and the rubicund face — which 
was now seen to belong to the figure of a stout man 
in queer deshabille but which reappeared on the 
following morning clad in the respectable garb of 
an ordinary English clergyman — retreated after heap- 
ing up a bombardment, consisting of pillows and 
great coats, against the inner door. 

The outside room was allotted to the women, but 
Zina who had little sleep, was stirring early, and 
longing, if possible, to climb one of the hills, to see 
the sun rise over the heights. Little sun was to 
be seen as yet. Instead, were weird shapes, spec- 
tral mysteries, and solemn banks of cloud moving 
on beneath her in a slow, stately way. Here and 
there were tree-tops peeping through the mist, blue- 
black pines, and feathery larches, but the trooping 
phalanx of clouds and shimmering mists seemed to 
hem her in, separating the little piece of. earth on 
which she stood from the world beneath, whilst 
above rose a glacier-crown and phantom-like peaks. 

Zina shivered. There was a ghost-like and mys- 
tic unreality about the place which made her feel 
as if her presence there were a dream. Or was it that all 
her previous life — that uncanny story about her poor 
young mother who had lain dead for so many years 
in one of the London cemeteries with a cold stone on 
her breast, that morbid attack of horrors at her father’s 
deathbed, and the defection of the one man for whom, 
in her false appreciation of his character, she had 
thought it possible to care — was the real dream? 

She could hear the sound of a mountain stream 
trickling past her like a ghost-melody. She had said 


140 


A Waking. 


that she hated music, but the passionate exclama- 
tion had not been true, and this stream, as it chanted 
its purling melodies, seemed to entrance her with 
its siren voice into another dream of possible hap- 
piness which should last, not as it had lasted yester- 
day, for a few brief moments of ecstacy, but till 
her pulses ceased to beat. Once more the voice of 
Goethe seemed to urge her, “Children, enjoy life!” 
The difference between knowing and feeling was 
always immense with her, and as she stood trembl- 
ing with a sense of something which she did not 
understand, and dreading the enslaving of her spirit, 
she became conscious that George Layton, who had 
also risen early, was standing by her, gazing at her 
once more with that intense gaze of admiration 
which would have attracted attention from the by- 
standers had he ventured to look at her in that fashion 
at the crowded hotel. 

“You,” he said, “ have a beautiful idea which is 
thrilling you with feeling and glorifying your face. 
Is it the same as mine — that we two mortals are 
alone in this world, shut away from our kind, and 
that the little cascade which we cannot see is sing- 
ing songs to us as it falls into the valley beneath 
— songs of freedom and happiness — intended only 
for our ears ? ” 

She moved a step or two back from him, but she 
did not answer. 

At that moment the sun suddenly conquered 
the mist, illuminating the scene, and bringing into 
sharp relief every detail, every peak and yawning 
chasm beneath; the gloomy forests and wild tor- 
rents with their foaming spray, the precipices, the 
ravines, and the chalets like pin-points in the dis- 
tance. She gave a cry of instinctive delight— wide- 
awake instantly to the fingertips, and quivering with 
excitement from her head to her feet. 

“Ah,” he said, “ you could not judge of the view 


A Mountain-Walk . 


141 

before, any more than you could judge of a person 
veiled with innumerable veils.” 

She did not seem to hear him, for still it was as 
if mysterious fingers were busily occupied undraw- 
ing first one intercepting veil and then another, 
disclosing glimpses both of beauty and terror. For 
the piece of grass on which she stood was suddenly 
discovered to be a dome of green, studded with little 
bushes which shelved down on one side to rust-red 
crags beneath, below which, far away and quiver- 
ing through mists, were villages and home-steads 
like specks in the distance. Above the lizard-like 
clouds which still clung round the mountain sides 
were the silver-tipped Alps, the topmost heights still 
coquetting with the mists, as if eluding pursuit. 

“Oh, wait just a minute or two,” she could have 
cried to the vision, “ till I can fix in my mind what 
I would remember.” 

And then again the relentless clouds, “ slow shep- 
herded by the unwilling wind, ” seemed to close around 
her, and for the first time she heard Layton’s voice 
saying in a more matter-of-fact way, “It was a 
good thing I followed you when you left the 
chalet. It would not have been safe for you to be 
here by yourself.” 

She had forgotten conventionality — the tears were 
on her cheek. But at the sound of his voice she 
seemed to wake up to reality. 

“We are no longer alone — ” she said with a laugh, 
“there is life all around us.” For it seemed to her 
in one of her sudden changes of mood, as if she 
could never again shut out the -joy of that Life which 
was clamouring louder than usual at her door. 
Something leapt in her veins to welcome it; some- 
thing in the expression of this man’s face seemed 
to rouse her from her sleeping palace. And then, 
possibly to prevent the awkwardness of taking 
further notice of his speech — she stooped to look at a 


142 


A Waking . 


cluster of flowers suddenly revealed close to the snow. 

“It is that rare specimen of gentian,” she said, 
seeing that it was beyond their reach. 

In another moment he had swung himself down. 
It seemed to her, in the iitstant of horror, that he 
hung suspended over the yawning chasm ; but before 
she had time to cry out— closing her eyes that she 
might not witness the worst, in that moment of 
dread which seemed to freeze her very blood and 
choke her utterance — he was again on the short 
grass by her side, the blood trickling from his 
hand, for he had torn himself with the sharp stones 
to get her the flower she coveted. 

“Oh!” she cried, when she recovered her power 
of speech; “how could you do such a thing, to risk 
your life for so little ? It takes away all my pleasure. 
It makes me shudder.” 

It was true, she was trembling in every limb at 
the recollection of that “ Force ” — blind and terrible 
she thought it — of which the phenomena around her 
were only the expression. And to hide her nervous 
excitement, she added almost sharply. “ I have read 
of such things in novels — but I never admired them.” 

He might have told her that it was not risking 
his safety, that the feat only required steady nerves 
and practised muscles, and that he was an accom- 
plished mountaineer. But he preferred to leave her 
in her delusion, and said, as he offered her the 
gentian. “You have conquered me, subjugated me; 
and it is my delight to obey your wishes, and yet 
you are cold — you are frigid, and care nothing for 
my distress.” 

Her woman's heart was going out to him as she 
looked at his bleeding hand, and he pursued his 
advantage, making no attempt at binding it up, 
but letting the drops of blood fall on the grass. 
“ Whether or not you choose to crush and maim 
my life, to throw it in scorn from you, I shall always 


A Mountain- Walk, 


i43 


love you. I have loved you from the moment 1 
first saw you, though I am a woman-hater — averse 
in every way to your sex.” 

At that moment he scarcely knew that he was 
lying when he called himself a misogynist. It 
was true that he had learnt to despise many of 
her sex; true also that every fibre in him was 
thrilling at the sound of her voice when she an- 
swered in uncertain tones, “ Give me time ; it is scarcely 
fair to take me by surprise like this. Let me ge 
back to the others, and forget what you have said. ” 

An inner voice told him that the time she was 
wishing to give him would be just what was needed 
to enable him to wrestle with his passion, and yet 
in his present tumult of anguish and desire there 
was something seductive and unusual in this quaint 
reserve. She had let him unbosom himself to her, 
but she had told him nothing in return; and yel 
ninety-nine penniless girls out of a hundred would 
have caught at the offer he made. 

“I can wait for your answer,” he said, “I have 
plenty of patience. ” 

Even then there was an irritating suggestion in 
his manner which reminded her of the old saw, 
“Everything comes to the man who waits.” Zina 
felt it in spite of herself, chafing a little at the idea 
that it was a foregone conclusion that she should 
accept this man’s suit, though she had so often in 
the old days railed against marriage, and though 
her conscience told her she ought to be more careful 
than ever of any step she took, since Stephen Dewe 
had proved so unworthy of her affection. 

But throughout the excursion which followed there 
was no escaping from his tender speeches. She was 
chary of her own words and indulged in no more 
raptures, even when they came upon the best view 
of Monte Rosa, and could look down over the 
Macugnaga valley. The climbing was difficult and 


144 


A Waking. 


new to her, so that it would have been useless to 
pretend she was not glad of assistance. The descent 
had to be accomplished with caution, and George 
Layton’s strong arm was the more valuable in 
emergencies because one of the guides had proved 
to be drunken, and the other was occupied in 
attending to the demands made upon him by other 
ladies. 

George Layton’s years of training, which had 
accustomed him to mountain-work, proved to be 
even more useful than he had anticipated. For Zina 
was suddenly nervous in a way she would not have 
liked to acknowledge, and made more than one false 
step, which might have been disastrous had he not 
caught her when she was stumbling. On one occa- 
sion he caught her rather unnecessarily near to his 
heart, and there was no one to see or to notice the 
rich blood mantling to her cheeks ; for the curve of 
the path hid their companions from view, and, over 
the rugged flanks of the mountains, mists were still 
floating, sometimes swathing their sides, and making 
every man and woman look to his or her own 
footsteps. 


CHAPTER XVIIL 

A FLIPPANT CHAPERON. 

It never occurred to Eva Capem, and still less to 
Zina herself, to think that George Layton might 
have put her in a questionable position by the atten- 
tions he had chosen to pay to her in so solitary an 
expedition. The question of troubling herself too 
much about the proprieties was one which rarely 
occurred to Zina. She would scarcely have been 
able in earlier years to carry on her close acquaint- 
ance with Stephen Dewe had she not been constantly 
associated with men. Her father had always had a 
large way of looking at these things, and had often 
laughed at the majority of women for their small 
conventionalities, their hundred and one prim rules 
of etiquette, and she had inherited from him his 
indifference to such trifles. 

George Layton was struck more than ever with 
admiration when she met him on the following day 
without any hurry of manner or sign of unusual 
excitement. The perfect self-control of this glorious 


146 


A Waking. 


creature would have enabled her to treat him as if 
nothing at all had happened, had he chosen to ignore 
the words uttered in an episode of passion. But 
none the less could he guess, by the expression of 
her speaking face, that the whole world was glowing 
and different for her, the skies and the clouds 
speaking a different language, and that even the 
music which she had professed to hate was appeal- 
ing to her soul once more as it had appealed in 
happier days. 

He found her in the garden. She had been sing- 
ing to herself, and a book of poetry lay open on 
her lap. She was reading a piece of Browning’s 
which she had read a hundred times before, but she 
perceived new meanings in it which she had never 
perceived till that day. He sat down by her and 
took her hand, but at first they did not speak, 
though latterly these two had been so good at 
repartee, so ready with impromptu witticisms, that 
the other people at the hotel would involuntarily 
listen to them. They had never cared to be brilliant, 
they had only cared to draw each other out and 
amuse one another. Yet this morning both were si- 
lent, till the man again urged for an answer to his suit. 

“Yesterday,” he said, “I told you I could wait, 
but to-day I know and feel I cannot. I feel as if 
your answer had been already given me, and I am 
like King Agag — the bitterness of death is passed. 
Still, I count evary day lost till I can call you — Wife.” 

A nervous thrill of fear shot suddenly through 
Zina’s veins, with a look which it was well he did 
not see in the dimness of that garden beneath the 
trees. Till that moment she had been thinking of 
the tempting vista of work in the life which might 
be before her in the years which were to come; of 
the mutual inspiration and soul-communion, the 
delightful interchange of thought, and the possible 
losing of self in the being of another, which should. 


A flippant Chaperon, 


*47 


be the characteristics of the highest form of marriage. 
She had intended to speak to him of all this. But 
a breath of something unknown seemed to be already- 
blowing across their new intercourse — making her 
draw her cloak a little closer round her shoulders. 
She was vexed with him for being so sure of her, 
and for the sort of easy familiarity with which he 
used a sacred word. It struck her like a touch of 
sharp reality. After all, what did she know of him ? 
And why this unseemly haste without recognising the 
necessity for submission to the forms of outward life ? 

It reminded her in an uncomfortable way of some 
Eva’s chatter — “how, after all was said, a woman 
educated as Zina had been, would be mad if she 
thought to live alone, or in the atmosphere of dreary 
economy to be found in Mary Carruthers’ house ; 
and how if a woman were truly loved she need not 
trouble to love much in return— all that would come 
by degrees.” Eva, who had heard something of 
Stephen Dewe’s defection had not even hesitated to 
hint that a new engagement would “ wipe out the 
horror of that other matter.” 

“Of course marriage is the natural career of all 
successful’ women,” she had added scornfully, “and 
to find oneself getting to a certain age and left in 
the lurch, is — to make a mess of things.” The cru- 
elty of the light words came back to Zina and 
tormented her. 

“ They none of them want me,” she thought, “ They 
have their own houses, and I have none. I am a 
tax on them” — And — yet — no such unseemly cause 
should compel her to take a hasty step. 

Had she answered yesterday’s question too 
lightly? She had heard the same question before 
from the lips of the many men whom she had 
refused. Had she been weak to admit to herself 
that circumstances had changed? Stephen Dewe 
had not written; he had rendered himself ineligible. 


148 


A Waking. 


even if he were to write now, by the fact of his 
withdrawal when his presence could have been a 
protection. She smiled bitterly when she reminded 
herself that his wild expressions of attachment 
must have been simply a boyish malady. The 
calf-love had been easily cured — and now that she 
was not likely to be so often molested as in the 
old days, this older man’s matured devotion pleaded 
for him. She did not wish to give way to Eva’s 
worldly reasoning, but she was so lonely, so help- 
less, that she felt her cheek flush and her eyes fill 
with moisture in the new craving for something 
which she hardly understood. 

Yet it was an impulse to test him which prompted 
her to say: 

“ I wish to be good to my kind and to live for 
large interests — not only those which affect our- 
selves ; that is my view of marriage, ” she said, as 
she drew the cloak in closer folds over her shoulders. 

“Did I not know it?” he cried, in a tone of 
exultation, “ and was it not this which attracted 
me to you? Wax dolls are antagonistic to me — 
positively repulsive, and the majority of pretty 
women are like wax dolls; but there is power in 
your face. As I see it now, with your head thrown 
back and outlined against the dark foliage of those 
trees, I rejoice in its power. You shall teach me 
to lead a nobler life than I have ever led yet; but 
the sooner we begin to lead it the better. Why 
should we wait? We are neither of us in the 
bread-and-butter stage of existence; we left that 
behind us a good many years ago. You are alone, 
and not very happy. It is because of your lone- 
liness that I want to hurry our marriage.’’ 

“ I have known you so short a time,” she urged, 
with a question in her eyes which he scarcely liked 
to face, “ and how can I be sure that I care for — 
you enough? Or that you will not tire of me?” 


A flippant Chaperon. 


149 


“ I think I understand,” he answered patiently. 
“ It is easy to understand that women of your sort 
never have very much sympathy with the unreason 
of passion. But, all the same, you must be sorry 
for me if I cannot take things quite so coolly.” 

“ The love I should like best, ” she continued, 
speaking almost as much to herself as to him, 
“ should — like all other good things — have the 
element of growth in it — it should strike firmer 
roots year by year — it should end by glorifying 
existence — Life should be good with such love — 
between a man and a woman. But it is just because 
of that, I think of marriage as an awful experiment. ” 

“You think too much,” he said lightly — “you 
are too ready to bother your little head with high 
and deep subjects. You should trust more to your 
intuition, your instincts are sure to guide you 
rightly. What more can a man tell you than that 
he too is ready to be guided by any instincts 
which are good and true?” 

She answered somewhat dubiously; perhaps he 
had scarcely chosen the style of argument likely to 
be most effective in her case. 

In Eva Capern he found an ally who proved 
to be more diplomatic and able than could have 
been suspected. Mrs. Capern could not let such 
a magnificent opportunity slip. If she could have 
ignored Zina altogether the matter would have 
been different. But it had been an open secret 
that Eva had been educated at Stuart Newbolt’s 
expense, when confided to his care by a spendthrift 
father on his death-bed. For Stuart Newbolt’s 
character had been full of these anomalies. And if 
Eva could have stopped the mouths of those inter- 
fering London gossips who made insolent remarks 
when they heard that Miss Newbolt had to work for 
her livelihood, or if she could have silenced the 
twinges of conscience which reminded her that, in 


A Waking. 


150 

her own orphanhood, Stuart Newbolt had been good 
to her, it would have been easier to dismiss Zina 
in her desolate condition altogether from her 
memory. In London she had found her absolutely 
unmanageable when she had planned any scheme 
especially for her benefit; nor was it very possible 
to introduce a woman, however beautiful, in deep 
mourning robes, to be like a skeleton at the feast, 
and a reminder of mortality in a gay London 
house. 

But Eva prided herself on being a skilful general, 
and she had not crossed the Alps and marshalled 
her forces like Hannibal for nothing. She had not 
toiled for the last few months, and told any amount 
of pretty fibs about her invalidism, for nothing. As 
soon as Mr. Layton had appeared on the scene, Eva 
had remarked that he was undeniably handsome, and 
that she heard he belonged to a tolerably good family, 
and had money — a combination which made her 
determine that he had excellent qualities, a beautiful 
disposition, and was estimable as a man. She might 
have Wearied Zina by singing his praises, -had not 
Zina’s own opinions inclined in the same direc- 
tion. For the first time it appeared as if it were 
not without reason that Mrs. Capern made friends 
with all the young men in the various hotels, 
training them to fetch and carry for her, and fas- 
cinating them by her smiles. For there is safety 
in numbers, and George Layton, having more than 
the ordinary English polish, and the faculty of 
shining in conversation, besides his striking appear- 
ance, and his habit of being always well-dressed, 
contrasted with the others like a sovereign among 
shillings. 

“My dear, you must be hard to please if that 
man is not good enough for you; he towers like 
a Saul among the rest of the men — you are a 
fortunate woman ! ” cried Mrs. Capern in her high* 


A flippant Chaperon . 


i5 


flown manner, determining not to let such a magni- 
ficent opportunity slip. 

She was getting weary of exposing her porcelain 
complexion to the brillant sunshine of Switzerland, 
and was secretly sighingafterthe pretty drawing-room 
with festooned tussore curtains in which she received 
visitors on her day at home. It was tiresome to 
know that the delights of the London season would 
soon be passing, and yet it had been impossible to 
ignore the fact that prejudices had been afloat con- 
cerning her in her “set”, and that the atmosphere 
had been rather heavily charged with ill-natured 
conjecture ever since it had been understood that 
Zina Newbolt was working for her bread. She used 
an argument which was perfectly true when she 
remonstrated with Zina, saying decisively, “it is 
awfully difficult for women of our class to earn their 
own living,” and she was scarcely aware of her 
own selfishness in telling herself that Zina’s marriage 
to a rich man would open up new sources of 
amusement for herself, and be the best stroke of 
luck which could possibly happen for both of them. 
Nevertheless she admitted that she fully recognised 
the delicacy of the situation, and even offered to 
write to London, and get her husband to make all 
the necessary inquiries, keeping the idea to herself 
of communicating to Zina that part of the infor- 
mation only which she should think most favourable. 

Meanwhile Zina was no longer obdurate. She 
could not shut her ears to the knock which had 
come at the citadel of her heart, neither could she 
turn out the traitor of importunate gladness, which 
was ready to open the gates. And, if the inquiries 
were satisfactorily answered, it was decided that the 
wedding should take place in Switzerland in another 
three weeks, George Layton having shewn some 
readiness in fixing that date. 

, In the normal state of things, Mrs. Capem’s deter- 


* 5 * 


A Waking . 


mination to manage Zina Newbolt would probably 
have defeated itself. Women are proverbially more 
difficult to be managed by womei than by the 
opposite sex. But the most unmanageable women 
will suddenly become docile when their own inclina- 
tions go hand in hand with their friends’ wishes, 
and so it proved in this instance. The woman who 
had gone through so much, and to whom the Fates 
in her former life had seemed to be so unkind, was 
ready to succumb. She was tired of holding out. 
If it were a dream, she was dreaming -with her eyes 
open, and had not even the wish, still less the power, 
to free herself from the spell. She had so thoroughly 
fallen into the toils, and was so ready to yield 
without a struggle, that Eva’s little fiction of making 
the proper inquiries in London was sufficient to 
give her confidence, and a sense of being shielded 
from any possible harm. 

She was not suspicious by nature, and did not for 
a moment suspect that Eva could be disingenuous 
enough to write, “ After all, the inquiries will make 
very little difference, for my guardian’s daughter, 
as you know, has a strong will of her own — even 
stronger than mine — and in this case she has made 
up her mind. You yourself talk about the folly of 
remonstrating with women when once they have set 
their minds on anything in particular. And oddly 
enough Zina’s, inclination squares with mine. 

“ ‘You would have been grievously dissoppointed,’ 
she said to me the other day, laughing, ‘if I had 
not married a man who was tolerably rich.’ He 
seems to be rich, clever, and up to the mark of good 
society. What more can we require ? And she for 
once is wisely obstinate, knowing perfectly well that 
though I am to seem to make these inquiries, I am 
not to tell her anything which would lead to a rup- 
ture. Well, she is intensely inaccurate like nearly all 
dreamers; she never dates a letter and has no sense 


A flippant Chaperon . 153 

of time, so she can’t expect you to give her very 
precise details.” 

And so the days passed pleasantly enough. Mrs. 
Capem, who was in reality counting the hours when 
she should be back in more enlivening society, was 
amiable in the emergency with that good humour and 
want of principle which so often go hand in hand. 
She was making the best of a situation which gave 
her opportunities for sweet millinery talks, the few 
necessary articles for Zina’s trousseau being purchased 
by the maid who undertook expeditions to Mon- 
treux or Lausanne for that purpose. 

Mrs. Capem could be niggardly enough in these 
purchases, but she was anxious to keep on good 
terms with Mr. Layton and it won her heart to find 
that he had a knowledge of what would be needed 
which seemed to come to « him intuitively, and a 
diplomatic cleverness on which he prided himself, and 
which she admitted nearly to equal her own. They 
worked together in favour of a short engagement, 
Eva emulating that transparent truthfulness in this 
matter which she usually blamed as so tiresome 
in Zina. 

“I do not wish to hasten you,” she said, at the 
same time managing to convey the impression that 
to make Mr. Layton wait longer would not only be 
unwise but embarrassing to herself, and that to linger 
later in Switzerland would be to demand an amount 
of self-abnegation from her, hardly to be expected 
from flesh and blood. Meanwhile, surrounded by 
young fellows, with whom as usual she condescended 
to flirt, and elegant as ever in rjhe languor 
caused by the warm weather, she was never more 
skilful in her tactics, and smiled sweetly when a letter, 
which she declared to be all that could be desired, 
was returned to her with the necessary information 
from her husband. 

Eva Capem had not only no wish to keep minis- 


i54 


A Waking . 


tering to what she would have called Zina’s fastidious 
objections, but she had no occasion to equivocate 
or to make use of ambiguous phrases, for Zina, 
easily satisfied for once, questioned her very little. 
And Mrs. Capem was as contented as she pretended 
to be, being herself one of the women whose affec- 
tions, if they possess any, are of the absolutely 
indiscriminating kind. She was not generally roman- 
tically inclined, but her sympathies were evidently 
with the bridegroom, and she hinted that Zina had 
been a little unkind in keeping her ardent lover so 
long waiting for his final answer, and that other 
women would have thought it foolish to dally with 
such a chance. In her heart she was somewhat sur- 
prised, but reasoned that if the girl were in love 
she could scarcely expect her perceptions to be as 
quick, or her judgment* as sharp, as on other occasions. 

“ Of course he thinks you far superior to the rest 
of your species. The spectacles of a man in love 
are proverbially rose-coloured — ditto with a woman, ” 
she said half beneath her breath. 

“ Oh, I know what you feel, though you do not 
show it, ” she added, a little provokingly, her theory 
being that the only philosophic way of discovering 
whether women like Zina were in love consisted in 
reading them backwards, and interpreting their 
speeches as if they were a kind of puzzle. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

AN ANONYMOUS LETTER. 

To escape from chatter of this sort, Zina was 
thrown more than ever into George Layton's society. 
It is true that she had seldom been more happy 
in her life, and though the happiness was not a 
fact on which she would have enlarged to Mrs. 
Capern — to whom she generalised, as women are 
said to generalise when they wish to hide their 
strongest emotions, shewing an inclination to laugh 
whenever George Layton was over-praised — yet she 
was evidently in good spirits, and the time did not 
lag with her. Her old confidence in her own intui- 
tion had so thoroughly returned, that she was not 
only inclined to think with Eva that all mysteries 
had been cleared up, but that, if there had been any 
real mystery from the first, she should certainly 
have known it by the instinctive antagonism which 
made her dislike those who were to be distrusted. 

Sometimes indeed, when she allowed herself to 
think of her quickly approaching marriage, her 


A Waking. 


156 

heart sank a little, and it seemed to her as if she 
were setting out on a new and exciting voyage 
to unexplored regions of which she knew little 
more than Columbus had known of the new world 
when he sailed for America, or Livingstone of Lake 
Nyanza when he set out for Africa. There might 
be all sorts of dangers to be encountered, and she 
was forced to admit that she had no chart to guide 
her ; she knew little of the previous life or pecu- 
liarities of the man she was about to marry, though 
Eva’s successful enquiries had given her to under- 
stand that she was about to pledge herself to one 
who had not only money and good connections, but 
an unblemished reputation. She had noticed that 
one of the old maids at the hotel who had been 
friendly to her before, had cut short all her attempts 
at conversation lately, with an odd sort of snort of 
disapproval. 

Uncharitably keen-eyed spinsters had indeed seen 
through Eva as a reckless match-maker, but sharp- 
tongued as some of the people were, they had hesitated 
to condemn the girl of husband-hunting. 

Then a new shock came upon her. It was three 
days before the date which had been fixed for her 
marriage, when, on going into her bedroom, she 
found a letter lying on her dressing-table, written in 
a handwriting which she did not recognise. Sup- 
posing it to be from one of the tradespeople, she 
opened it slowly, and read it with absent eyes, 
till suddenly its full meaning dawned on her in- 
telligence. The letter was anonymous, and affected 
to be kind. 

“Forgive me for the interest which prompts 
me to write to you even at the eleventh hour. I 
should advise you to ask some of your friends — 
male friends who are more to be trusted than the 
flippant lady who chaperons you — for your own 


An anonymous Letter . 


i57 


sake, and before you make up your mind to take 
the rash step you are contemplating- at present. 
There are many ways of avoiding the legality of 
marriages in foreign countries. In Switzerland a 
marriage is not legal between two British subjects, 
when the English Consul is absent. Enquire for 
yourself — you will find he is away at present. Ask if 
you are to be married at an Embassy or Con- 
sulate. ” 

She read the letter with a cold thrill ; but indigna- 
tion and anger succeeded to her first sense of alarm. 
To confide perfectly in anyone was impossible; 
neither could she believe such unpleasant com- 
munications as these. Would not Eva — hating 
worries of every kind — sneer at her for attaching 
any importance to such a malign letter, and treat 
all her questions with cynical indifference? Had 
not Eva already accused her of being unkind to one 
who loved her, suspecting mysteries where there 
were no mysteries to »be cleared np ? “ Do you not 
suppose that I should keep my eyes open? My 
maid hears all the gossip, and yet never a word 
has been breathed against Mr. Layton?” Mrs. Capern 
had said to her a fortnight before. No, whatever 
torments she might have to endure, Zina would 
have preferred to conceal the hidden anguish. 

Since the engagement had taken place Eva had 
ceased to patronise her ; she had become indeed all 
sugar-sweetness, but Zina’s natural instinct of self- 
preservation prompted her to keep her pain to 
herself. Nothing could be more hateful to her than 
Eva’s way of ignoring her, and looking through 
her instead of at her, when she took her to task for 
her “ ridiculous notions” and reminded her that all men 
were not moulded on one type, and that every man 
must be allowed to have his own peculiarities. It 
was true that Zina Newbolt had not hitherto been 


A Waking. 


*58 

able to afford the luxury of being proud ; but Eva’s 
interference had been galling to hen 

“ I am surely old enough to be able to manage my 
affairs for myself,” she said, ensconcing herself in her 
armour of reserve, “but I suppose I must tell her.” 

“I don’t think she is at all easy to understand,” 
one of the gossips at the hotel had said about Zina, 
giving up the problem of solving the riddle of her 
character. “One likes her very much, but there is some- 
thing which at times makes one feel uncomfortable. ” 

“You would like her to be more conventional, and 
you despise that something? another lady had answered. 

Yet all of them had pitied her. No gentleman 
was with her, and the wits of women of Mrs. 
Capern’s stamp are so often singularly inapprehensive. 

Had the anonymous letter come earlier, it might 
have shaken Zina’s confidence, and startled her out 
of her new happiness. But she had so far made 
up her mind that, when she read it over a second 
time, it seemed to her, as it seemed to Eva — when 
at last she made up her mind to take the prejudiced 
Mrs. Capem into her confidence, — the concoction 
of jealousy, malice, and concentrated wickedness, 
and when she read it a third time she thought it not 
even worth her attention. “ All this is so very silly, so 
poorly and weakly written — like most anonymous 
letters, ill-advised, even if well-meaning — if there is 
a foolish rule of this kind about the Swiss Consul, 
it is just as likely as not that George did not 
know it himself,” she said to herself, not perceiving 
that her own wits were confused. 

Yet sleep was impossible that night. And, when 
the intended bridegroom came to see her on the 
following morning, she determined to put the ques- 
tion to him herself, and to abide by his way of 
answering. 

George Layton drew a sharp breath. His own 
apprehensions had almost ceased. Now that he 


An anonymous Letter . 


i59 


could count the days on his fingers to that of the 
wedding, it was ridiculous to be met with this 
mysterious menace, as if at the very last the woman 
he loved could escape him. 

“ What ridiculous nonsense they do talk ! ” he 
said almost irritably. “Fancy having to delay our 
marriage for a mere punctilio of that sort! I should 
have thought you were the last woman to be the 
slave of convention.” 

There was a downward inflection in the tone 
of her voice as she answered. 

“You know we agreed long ago that, so long as 
such conventions are necessary for the well-being 
of society, we could not be too punctilious about 
them. If it were only a registry office it would 
be the same thing, but you told me that you thought 
as well as I did that all legal rites must be care- 
fully considered.” 

“Oh for the matter of that,” he began, “all 
these ideas about legal marriage differ in different 
countries, a Scotch marriage being a mere declar- 
ation, and a Roman Catholic one hampered by all 
sorts of difficulties. Do not let our ideas become 
confused about the real thing — there would be no 
end to the mischief if we once let ecclesiastics 
dictate the laws of our marriages.” 

“ But the religious service is optional” she said. 

He tried to take her hand and draw her nearer to 
himself, as he continued, “ The truest marriage is a 
union between congenial hearts — all these conven- 
tional enactments will become obsolete in time, but 
nothing can be obsolete when two are made one 
in absolute trust and sympathy. What a conven- 
tional little woman it is, in spite of priding itself 
on its freedom of thought! Are women ever really 
free, or are they merely passive creatures? How 
easy it is to scare them with logic!” 

A flame of fire shone in her face, and she drew 


1 60 A Waking . 

back a step or two when he attempted to touch her. 

“ Answer me as you would answer in the sight of 
God — did you know of the absence of the Consul 
when you fixed that special date for our marriage 
— did you mean to ignore the consulate?” 

His breath came and went quickly. The day was 
not a warm one, but the pores of his skin were so 
moist that he looked as if he must beat a retreat 
from the heat. The blood rushed darkly into his 
face, yet he knew that the crisis was imminent, 
and he gazed back at her steadily, never moving 
his eyes from hers. 

“Not to have inquired into these things gives 
people all sorts of suspicions, ” she continued. 

“ What suspicions?” he asked sternly, changing 
his bantering tone to that of a man who is outraged, 
and it seemed as if the harshness of his voice 
relieved her. “ Did you think I was in earnest — that, 
whatever I might say about the abstract question, 
it was possible I could deceive you , or any other 
woman who confided in me? — How can you for- 
give me for supposing you would have preferred 
to be married according to the rites of the church? 
I suppose you think I ought to have inquired into 
this other matter, but I did not know.” 

“ I knew it was a mistake,” she said, with a rapid 
look at him, as she lifted her head. The remnant of 
the vanishing fire was still shining in her face, but 
her voice had already softened. 

He tried to take her hand and kiss it, he even 
prostrated himself at her feet, saying in his ten derest 
tones, “Dear, what did you think — that even if I 
were a blackguard, I could be such a selfish cur as 
that ? I am bad enough, but not so bad or so cruel 
as my enemies would make me out. ” 

But she was not so easily mollified, and the styel 
in which he spoke jarred on her sensitive nerves. 
Her eyebrows went up. “ I do not believe in anyone 


An anonymous Letter . 161 

being inveterately cruel, ” she said beneath her 
breath, “I know it is the fashion to make a hard, 
cut-and-dried demarcation between the good and 
the bad, but I never yet met with a person who 
was all bad — or all good, ” she added, sinking her 
voice to a whisper. 

"Would you like to punish me by making me 
wait? I will wait for months, or years, if you 
like, ” he said, still in that deferential tone by 
which he veiled the struggle in his heart. 

“A woman is all the better for having a few 
foolish fancies — foolish they would be called in 
men, ” he was saying to himself ; “ but women are 
delicate susceptible creatures, and it is a part of 
their delicacy to invent torments for themselves.” 
Then he said aloud, “I should like things properly 
done, as well as yourself — we shall have to wait for the 
necessary date : it will involve a very slight delay. ” 
She only answered by an exclamation which 
seemed to be wrung from her. “ Oh, what a merciful 
thing we found it out in time ! ” 

Her emotions were too strongly excited for her to 
notice that he did not echo the cry. He had 
thought of her as a prize not to be let slip from 
mere carelessness, and then — as the difficulties in- 
creased — his earnestness and ardour in hunting 
down the game which eluded him had proved corre- 
spondingly great. But for the first time it struck 
him that the* price which he would have to pay for 
the prize would be heavier than he had counted on. 
It could not be that she was like the majority of 
women who made this show of respectability a sort of 
profession. He dared not hint that she was over- 
scrupulous. For the burden of speech was on her, 
and there were tears in her voice. 

“You tell me solemnly you did not know this, or 
that if you knew it you had forgotten ? ” she insisted 
once more before she would draw nearer to him. 


l6 2 


A Waking. 


In other women the anxious speech would have 
irritated his nerves by its senseless repetition. But 
she looked so to advantage as she stood with her 
bosom heaving, her features lit up by her emotion, 
and her great eyes fixed entreatingly on him, that 
— where in other cases he might have answered 
with a meaningless imprecation — his voice shook a 
little as he responded, * Before Heaven and earth 
I tell you I never as much as thought of it. It is 
such a ridiculous rule to make, and I am an absent- 
minded man. All my friends give me that bad 
character. Nothing but marriage can cure me of 
the faults of a lifetime. ” 

“ I believe you, I could not look into your 
eyes and hear you talk like that and not believe you, ” 
she repeated as solemnly, sinking on a seat as if 
her trembling limbs refused to bear her any longer. 
Her instincts of revolt had been just, but they were 
over-ndden. Her belief in his absolute sincerity was 
restored, and she threw the letter into the grate, 
which was close by her side, tearing it into innu- 
merable pieces, with a little joke at the idea that 
the anonymous writer could have hoped to destroy 
the bond between them. 

She never again mentioned the matter to any- 
one, and it did not occur to her till afterwards to 
think it strange that Eva should have preserved so 
odd a silence when she found that the marriage was 
necessarily delayed, though her own return to England 
was interfered with in consequence. 

More than once Mrs. Capern had blamed her 
for attaching any importance to the conduct of the 
other women in the hotel. 

“Don’t flare up at trifling things — use your com- 
mon-sense,” had been her constant advice to Zina. 
And yet she herself seemed inclined to get up an 
indignant bluster about a mere trifle, when she 
added inconsistently, “How ridiculous you are! 


An anonymous Letter \ 163 

As if you did not know how jealous other women 
can be, and how they would give worlds to be in 
your place ! ” Afterwards Zina remembered how she 
had added that they would be, “ the sort of people 
to spring a lot of nonsense upon you like a rocket, 
just when you were comfortable!” 

Zina's pride forced her to keep her own counsel 
and to try to put the matter out of her mind. 
But long afterwards she had a suspicion, with a 
pang which she could not hide, that the married 
woman who should have been her best protector 
knew more of the true bearing of what had happened 
than she ever revealed. 

Her own shyness kept her silent, and a fit of 
shyness came over her when, one day before the 
marriage actually took place, George Layton tried 
again to allude to it — after all it was so uncomfort- 
able. 

“I am so ashamed of myself to have been so 
careless,” he laughed a little nervously, “as so 
nearly to have made a mistake which would have 
seemed such a dreadful one in your eyes; although 
it would have been all the same, you know, in the 
eyes of most reasonable people.” 

She stared at him, a little frightened, missing the 
true import of his speech, and only seeing it after- 
wards. But the fright was only momentary, and 
when she thought of it, she flushed with a 
sort of shame as she recognised all the generous 
preparations he was making for her comfort, and 
how she had allowed herself, even for a minute or 
two, to doubt his good faith. 







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BOOK II. 









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CHAPTER L 


AFTER THE MARRIAGE. 

The Laytons returned to England directly after their 
marriage. And the blank which follows the excite- 
ment of travelling through new scenes of artistic and 
intellectual delight was modified in Zina’s case by 
the pleasure of settling down in her new home. 
Her husband would have proposed a week or two 
in London, but the season — which, when in its full 
swing, had that year been distinguished by unusual 
vitality — was flagging to its close. The invitations 
to balls, dinners, routs, races, concerts, and matintes , 
which had hitherto been showered on the tables of 
the elect, were now becoming beautifully less, and 
the novelty-craving, pleasure-loving public began 
as usual to find out that the season had been a 
failure, and abused the Syren which had charmed 
them with its infinite variety, and was now beginning 
to show a hag-like face. 

The marriageable daughters who had still to remain 
unmarried; the dowagers who regretted the money 


A Waking. 


1 68 

which had been spent on failure ; the hosts who had 
to pay the bills for festive gatherings which had 
proved unprofitable, and the penniless detrimentals 
who had been taught to know their proper position, 
all united in chorus, and found out that the Season 
had been one of the worst ones ever known. 

The bride and bridegroom arrived at that period 
of depression, when the flowers in the window- 
boxes in the best houses of Mayfair and Belgravia 
were left to droop unwatered, and the striped 
awnings over the balconies had already been taken 
down. The parterres in Hyde Park were no longer 
gay with many colours, but dusty and faded ; 
the grass in Regent’s Park was parched and exhausted, 
and Kensington Gardens were given over to a few 
pedestrians, groups of children and perambulators. 

The marked diminution in smart barouches, 
glittering Victorias and Morvi carts, in the daily 
stream of wheeled traffic; and the dearth of riders 
in the Row announced the fact that the Season 
was drawing to its close, while everybody was 
complaining that the heat was stifling. Delicate 
complexions were unbecomingly flushed, and Zina 
— who had always had a dislike to smart parties 
though she had tolerated the smaller gatherings at 
her father’s house, and who thought that the atmo- 
sphere of the theatres and Italian Opera House would 
be intolerable — was rejoiced when George Layton 
acceded to her request, taking her at once to the 
country house in Surrey, which had been in his 
family for more than two generations. 

“ You will find it dull enough unless you fill it 
with guests. I have seldom lived in it myself since 
the old people died, and a lonely bachelor can 
only amuse himself with grumpy male friends. But 
we will change all that now,” he said, scarcely 
heeding her answer when she hastened to declare 
that a society a deux would quite suffice for her. 


After the Marriage . i6g 

Zina raved about her new home, with its old- 
fashioned grounds, its beautiful timber, and — that 
necessity in a landscape — a piece of ornamental 
water. Layton called it a “ duck-pond,” but the 
duck-pond was large enough to have a small boat 
moored on it ; there were sedges on its banks, and 
beautiful reflections in its depths. 

The grey towers of the old stone house harmonised 
well with the trees which surrounded it, and if the 
grounds were not large the slight assistance of 
art gave them the appeanance of communicating with 
vast stretches of greensward. Layton laughed at 
his wife when she told him that the place realised 
her day-dreams and fairy visions. She was in a 
humour to be pleased, and was equally delighted 
with the old staircase, the antique balusters, the 
immense hall, the big drawing-room with large 
looking-glasses, consoles, marble tables, candelabra, 
tapestry with cupids and flowers, and handsome 
paper which formed a background for family 
portraits. 

"The portraits are, not ours, and the tapestry 
is worm-eaten stuff — we are not people who can 
pride ourselves on our genealogical tree — the whole 
thing went together, when my grandfather made his 
fortune in oil, and purchased the place, pretty well 
half a century ago,” George said with a shrug, “ but I 
never find it necessary to enter into particulars, the 
less one explains the better, when things are taken 
for granted.” 

It was one of the speeches which jarred on Zina, 
though it was lightly said. And it jarred on her 
still more when, on hurrying to the conservatories, 
finding that they contained the blossoms she loved, 
and announcing her intention of still studying the 
luminous textures of the lily-petal, and the sheeny 
velvet of the rose, he answered indifferently, “I 
think you have real talent, but you will have some- 


170 A Waking. 

thing else to do now; you can buy what pictures 
you please.” 

The cynicism reminded her again of her father, 
who on her return from studying in Rome had told 
her that he had a particular objection to religious 
pictures, they were a survival of bygone supersti- 
tions. “Whatever else you paint,” Stuart Newbolt 
had said, “ may I beg that you will steer clear of 
Madonnas, and those anatomical monstrosities with 
wings, called angels.” 

George Layton was less sweeping in his restric- 
tions. He could hardly be severe after having raved 
about Andrea del Sarto and his consummate harmony 
of manner, in line, colour, and chiaro-oscuro. Had it 
not been the picture of Andrea, the faultless, which 
first attracted him to his wife? But none the less 
did he probe her with his cynical stiletto. 

Her energy and her small enthusiasms amused 
him, whilst the look of amusement in his face was 
perhaps harder to .bear than any amount of open 
sarcasm. He told her smilingly that she was like 
a child. For as soon as her boxes were unpacked, 
and her dress arranged for. the autumn (a point on 
which George was particular) she began to occupy 
herself with the furniture and the gardens. But 
the gardeners were sufficient for the work, which 
they had been accustomed to do for years, and 
looked a little askance at the new mistress who 
ventured to interfere with horticultural details. 

She was fond of altering things, and experiment- 
ing in improvements, but nothing could be altered 
to advantage in the conservatories. All that she 
could wish in the way of Gloire de Dijon and Marechal 
Niels, Japanese lilies, tuberous begonias, velvety 
gloxinias, and standard fuchsias — to be varied in 
the winter-time by camelias and chrysanthemums — 
were there in lavish abundance. She was intending 
to suggest the cultivation of the Tropaeolum, but 


After the Marriage . 17 1 

its wax-like bunches already hung from the roofs, 
with the newest specimens of clematis, and there 
were even orchid-houses. Yet it was vexatious to be 
obliged to ask the gardeners’ leave before she could 
cut flowers for her dinner-table. 

She would have turned her attention, next, to the 
great kitchen garden where the cauliflowers, the 
cabbages, the dainty-leaved asparagus, and the big 
carrots were all wonderful, on account of their 
luxuriant abundance; but there again the head- 
gardener had his prerogative. She had a yearning 
to be allowed to bring up a few seedlings for her- 
self, but even that could not be allowed for fear 
of infringing on somebody’s province. 

It was worse when she tried to remodel the house. 
The housekeeper had always dreaded the advent of 
a lady with new-fangled ideas, who would despise 
her for the constant dustings and polishings which 
it had been her delight to superintend. The hand- 
some rose-wood chairs and sofas in the large 
“droin-room” had been carefully covered up, and the 
hues of the old-fashioned carpet had been wonder- 
fully preserved by Mrs. Newton’s recipe of hiding 
it with brown holland. Even house-flies had not 
been allowed to desecrate the huge portraits, which — 
as George so cynically confessed— did not belong to 
his family, but had been purchased with the whole 
“plant.” 

And Zina decided at last to consign the ladies 
in mob-caps, ladies with large ruffles, and jovial 
reckless-looking squires, who smiled at her from 
the gilded frames which were innocent of a speck 
of dust, to the tender mercies of Mrs. Newton and 
the hand-maidens who were constantly employed in 
their rubbings and scrubbings. 

It would have been positively cruel to have 
arrived at any other conclusion. And the new 
mistress was only anxious to propitiate the old lady, 


A Waking. 


172 

who had taken her fancy at first, when she looked 
smiling and respectable as she stood curtseying 
to receive the bride, dressed in her stiffest black 
silk gown, and cap with lilac ribbons. There 
seemed to be no other method so good as that of 
leaving her in undisturbed possession of her own 
domains, and after a while Zina acknowledged 
that there was little or nothing for a new-comer 
to improve. For Mrs. Newton, who had been in- 
clined to be not only worried, but a little patronising 
at seeing the chairs and tables wheeled into different 
positions, was generally triumphant when in the 
end they were wheeled back again into the time- 
honoured places they had occupied ever since George 
Layton could remember. And Zina had to content 
herself with the knowledge that she had furniture 
enough to play with in the department of which 
she remained Queen of all she surveyed. 

For boudoir, bedroom and dressing-room had been 
specially ornamented for the bride’s appearance by 
a collection of curiosities, which the housekeeper in 
her secret heart sneered at as “gimcracks,” but 
which her master had been years in amassing from 
every quarter of the globe. George had been in 
the habit of bringing home something unique which 
had particularly struck his fancy, from each of 
his foreign journeys. The result, if bizarre, was 
certainly wonderful. For the articles which Mr. 
Layton had accumulated were of rare value. When 
he collected them he had had no idea of preparing 
for a wife; he had bought them for his own plea- 
sure and warehoused them in an empty room. And 
the artistic house-decorator to whom he wrote from 
the Continent, telling him to dispose them to the 
best advantage in preparing a suite of apartments 
for a lady, had been a little puzzled how to arrange 
them. 

“I’m most afeared to go into missus’s room after 


After the Marriage . 


*73 


dark, ” one of the housemaids had acknowledged. 
And her master had laughed when he heard how 
she thought that them “things on the wall” (meaning 
some Japanese monsters) would “make a rush at 
her with their wings. ” 

It had been sufficient that Zina was delighted 
with the result. 


CHAPTER IL 


A GILDED CAGE. 

So it happened that for a time the large drawing- 
room was given over to desolation and the domestic 
irtual of Mrs. Newton. It would be most suitable, 
as George remarked, for a ball-room, or theatricals, 
in which case the furniture could be moved out of 
the way. Meanwhile they lived in the second 
drawing-room, — a sunny room on the west side of 
the house, which Zina had constantly filled with 
plants from the conservatories. 

And as the autumn came on, the dripping beeches 
with their yellow leaves looked less dreary from 
this room. 

“I like the view much better — you can not only 
see the shrubbery, but that bit of the * wilderness 9 
which I love, ” said the wife, gazing with affectionate 
eyes at a belt of intermingled trees where pines 
and coniferae gave promise of vigorous growth. 
“We ought to be very happy here — it is a sort of 
earthly paradise,” she added with an unconscious sigh. 


A Waking. 


175 


44 Happy here all our lives, with a sort of ‘John 
Anderson my Jo/ happiness, going hand in hand 
together for the next fifty years, to sleep at last 
in the village churchyard! No, my dear, I should 
be dog-tired of that sort of happiness, and I fancy 
that you too would not find it a period of unalloyed 
bliss,” answered George, laughing heartily. 

But the tone of his voice grated on her, and for 
the first time she took herself to task for not being 
sufficiently thankful for her freedom from care, and 
her sudden promotion from anxious, hardworking 
poverty to an affluence which ought to have made any 
woman happy. 

If George had only given her more of his society, 
instead of burying himself in his study! 

At first she respected his hours of retirement. 
That stamp of intellect on his face must mean pos- 
sibilities, some fibres of manly ambition which needed 
only to be humoured into growth. It was a little 
time before she understood that he had tried books 
as he had tried society, sports, baccarat, politics and 
travelling, and that all in turn had become flat, and 
would be flatter than ever if his experiment in 
married life palled upon him too. 

He was a collector of books, retiring to his library 
for many hours in the day. But when she followed 
him into the sanctum she found that he did not 
study much. He was a genuine lover of the delicate 
vellum of the books, and he had several rare editions 
of which he was amazingly careful ; the mere suspicion 
of grease on a page, or a dog’s-ear, or a thumb 
mark, being a matter of abhorrence to him. If he 
seldom read his books, he collated them, and had 
them continually catalogued and rebound ; he talked 
as if he had read all of them in the days of his 
youth. In this sanctum he smoked a good deal, 
once offering her a cigarette. He did so as a 
matter of habit, and then suddenly pulled himself 


76 


A gilded Cage . 


up, declaring that he had forgotten she was one of 
the women who occupied a superior platform, and 
had an objection to the fragrant weed. In the 
study, too, he had continual glasses of brandy or 
curagoa, remarking on the dulness of the country, 
the objectionable dampness of the English climate, 
and the necessity of taking something to keep out 
the cold. 

When she knocked at the door, he pretended to 
be deeply engrossed with a book, or occupying 
himself with newspapers, but after a while she began 
to have her own suspicions that he spent a good 
j deal of time in sleeping, as well as smoking, or 
1 drinking these glasses of curagoa. It was not compli- 
mentary to her society. She began to fancy that 
he had a look of discontent or disappointment on 
his face, but did not as yet suspect that he was 
missing something to which he had been always 
accustomed, and that the presence of one woman, 
although she might be the woman he had selected 
as his wife, could not altogether compensate for 
the absence of the numerous women who adored 
him, and the men who felt the attraction of his 
presence. A companionship a deux was not likely 
to be sufficient for him. 

It needed no one to point out to her the mistake 
of trying to force sentimental situations. When he 
did not seem to be anxious for her company she 
left him, having not the slightest doubt of his real 
affection for her, and reminding herself that a man 
did not marry a portionless girl for nothing. 

All the same it was dull. For, as he did not 
like her to spend too much time over her painting, 
there seemed to be nothing else for her to do. She 
had come to a pass in life when there was never 
likely to be anything really important for her to do. 
It was depressing. She was energetic enough and 
English enough not to feel as if marriage ought to 


A gilded Cage. 


*77 


limit her capacities, or put an end to possibilities 
in the future. She could not hold to the doll’s house 
theory of existence, or feel as if life had no more 
in store for her, because she had met the man who 
was destined to be her husband and married him. 
Rather was it in accordance with her theory, that 
the drama of existence should begin, and new vistas 
of usefulness open for her. She knew she had no 
reason for discontent if, after the few first weeks 
of wedded companionship, her husband did not 
necessarily remain a lover, for she prided herself 
on being a reasonable woman, freer from the 
temptation of making illogical demands on the time 
and patience of others than most of her sex. Still 
in some strange and undefined way she missed 
the mystery of the unknown, the delight of indefinite 
hopes, and in the every-day routine of this countrified 
domestic life she was conscious of disillusion. The 
charm of autumn with its varying tints was as 
beautiful in its way as the charm of the spring, 
but there was something melancholy, as time went 
on, in the rainy days and the decaying vegetation. 

The rain penetrated the warmest clothing, and as 
there was not much pleasure in walking over lawns 
or gravel paths, with tiny waterfalls streaming from 
one’s umbrella, she was driven back into the cosy 
nest which her husband had prepared for her. It 
was cosy enough, and very beautiful; much money 
had been spent in lining it with down, but it struck 
her more than once, with a pang at her heart which 
seemed ungrateful and which she could not exactly 
comprehend, that George would have been better 
pleased if she could have occupied herself altogether 
with bibelots in the pretty little suite of apartments 
which he prepared for her, and which was up to 
the newest lights. 

“ Oh, how lovely, * she had said when she had 
seen it first. The art treasures were lovely enough, 


178 


A Waking . 


but she could not look at them for ever. That he 
should expect her to be happy shut up alone in 
these rooms and deprived of any special employment 
gave her the impression that he wanted her to be 
a superior sort of canary bird, confined in a gilded 
cage, fed with seed and lumps of sugar, and only 
allowed to hop about at certain times in the day. 

To ramble out even when the weather was bad 
seemed to her preferable to spending hours in the 
gilded cage. 

But one morning, when her husband met her 
equipped in waterproof and with campstool his look 
of surprise was so great, that she had to say in 
explanation, “ Don’t you see how beautiful the 
mist is ? I thought of going out to sketch it. ” 

“ I see that it will bring on lumbago or sciatica,” 
he said shrugging his shoulders. “How can you 
like to be so constantly damp?” 

Damping to him, he seemed to hint, but she was 
too disconcerted to laugh at the joke. 


CHAPTER m. 


TIME FOR REFLECTION. 

In her boudoir she had ample time for reflection. And 
if the reaction which her husband had perhaps been 
anxious to bring about did not come all at once, if 
she did not as yet weary of this solitary country life, 
though he had more than once railed at its exces- 
sive dulness, it was because her energetic mind was 
putting out fresh feelers after increased occupation. 
Town pleasures, as she still declared, had very little 
seduction for her, and even George did not advocate 
a move in the autumn months. 

“Nobody,” as he said, “would be in London at 
this season of the year,” the toiling millions who 
might some day take their revenge on the pam- 
pered minority, being still at work in the hive, but 
ignored as if they did not exist. 

“The spring,” as she answered cheerily, “would 
be the time to enjoy the country,” and as he did 
not think it necessary to go in for hostile remarks, 
he did not answer that the spring was the very 


8o 


A Waking . 


time for going to Town. She began to talk about 
the lambs and the calves, the warbling of the birds, 
and the coming of primroses, and she noticed that 
he did not respond. He did not think it necessary 
to tell her that there was nothing interesting in 
lamb unless it were on a dish, that he never thought 
of noticing the gambols of calves, and that the warbl- 
ings of thrushes and blackbirds to their mates were 
apt to disturb his slumbers in the morning. 

He did not even care to talk about his travels. 

“I do believe he has seen everything,” she said 
to herself, “ from crocodiles to the great sea-serpent 
itself. You can startle him with nothing.” 

Even his smile was a trifle blasd when she tried 
to discuss these things with him. And he had a 
habit of shutting his eyes as if they were quite 
worn out with all the pictures of cities and land- 
scapes imprinted on the retina. 

In reality he was only waiting to propose a 
“house-party,” having no intention of continuing 
to live up to the sort of strain which had been forced 
upon him when it was necessary to secure the 
woman he loved. The rebound from intense anxiety 
before he had succeeded in his attempt was followed 
by a flatness which she would be certain to 
recognise sooner or later. It would only be a 
matter of time ; he waited for her to find it out, 
and to develop into the fashionable woman who 
would seek the ordinary modes of enlivening her- 
self. The staff of servants was more than ample. 
There was one maid to help her to arrange her 
various dresses, and another to take continual mes- 
sages to the stately housekeeper. She had little to 
do but to give the servants carte blanche to study 
the tastes of their master. He was fastidious, and 
was accustomed to be humoured in his eating and 
drinking. 

After the first month or two this state of things 


Time for Reflection. 181 

began to weigh upon her conscience. She re- 
membered the poverty which she herself had 
endured, and the unevenness which had always 
struck her in earthly lots. She could not help 
reminding herself how she had determined, if the 
time ever came when she would not have to earn her 
own living, never again to give way to idleness, 
never to be without some great resource, in fact 
to act much in the same way as if she were still 
dependent on her own efforts for support. She 
had not thought it necessary to tell her husband of 
the role which she had marked out for herself, but 
his remarks about her painting had been a keen 
disappointment to her. That desire of the artist to 
collaborate with Nature, being not merely imitative 
or mimetic, but infusing her own spirit into every- 
thing which she painted, had seemed to him a 
little absurd. Work! He had never worked himself 
and had no sympathy with work ; he wished his 
wife to be ornamental like other successful women. 

He had humoured her, during their short engage- 
ment, in a way of speaking about the subject 
which seemed to him slightly ridiculous, trembling 
on the verge of the theatrical, but as a husband he 
no longer considered it necessary to humour her. 

“ I like — to act — as if I were independent,” she 
had tried to explain to him more than once, “ I 
cannot imagine myself in a situation in which it 
would not be right to be industrious — the people 
who set themselves to do something are always the 
happiest. ” 

Something in his voice grated on her as he an- 
swered : 

“ What is the good of doing anything in partic- 
ular, when in fifty years whatever we do will be 
sure to be forgotten. There are too many gifted 
people in the present generation for the gifts of any 
one person to be of any importance whatever,” 


1 82 


A Waking . 


He spoke, as he explained, quite as much of him- 
self as of her, and she began to understand that 
this was the secret of his constant inertia. After 
all it was not uncomplimentary when he further 
explained that he could not bear to see her wearing 
herself out in spoiling her pretty eyes and delicate 
complexion with unnecessary fag. She was forced 
to remember that it was he who had made the fag 
“ unnecessary”. An out-of-door life was after all 
very much to her taste, and when the weather 
became finer with the air cold and clear, there were 
the resources of riding and driving, and George 
Layton had no further excuse for shutting himself 
up in the house. George was a good rider. Appar- 
ently there was nothing of this sort, which he did 
badly, but he cared for it no more than he cared 
for shooting for its own sake; she noticed that he 
took little interest in his horses or his dogs. ’He 
explained that he thought the riding slow; what 
was the use of ambling along in dirty lanes which 
he had seen a thousand times before? He wished 
his wife to ride well, he even took pains with her 
riding and taught her how to take her fences ; 
remarking that he did not see what was the use of 
her sitting straight and riding really well unless she 
had someone to see her ride. 

“I want you to look well in the Row, ” he added, 
and she could not help thinking that he cared most for 
riding in the Row, or hunting with a party of friends. 
To run the risk of being splashed up to one’s neck 
with no object in view but that of amusing oneself 
with one’s own wife evidently did not suit him. 

He confessed to the fact of caring most for 
yachting, but this again was not enlivening; since 
it proved on enquiry that though it might have been 
possible for him to keep his own yacht as a bachelor, 
it was one of the expenses which he would have 
to curtail as a married man. 


Time for Reflection, 183 

He took refuge ©nee more in his sanctum after 
they had scoured the lanes and moors together. 
And she comforted herself by thinking that — as he 
did not care for riding, and was not fond of get- 
ting about on his own legs — she could eke out the 
short days by visits to the cottagers in the neigh- 
bourhood. 

It was not the first time in her life that she had 
found herself taking an interest in the opinions, pas- 
sions, and aspirations of that large class of her 
fellow-creatures called the “working class,” and 
she was delighted when it suddenly occurred to her 
that the position of a Lady Bountiful still remained 
for her and would be exactly the right one for her 
to fill. There were plenty of people for her to 
help immediately around her own grounds, and she 
was astonished beyond measure when she found 
that George was worried by what he called her 
“ interference. ” He put it to her gently but not 
the less was she surprised, when he begged her to 
leave things alone, and not to create an awkward- 
ness for his steward. 

“It is quite a mistake to suppose that you will 
make things any better for Hodge and his wife 
by sympathising with them and petting them, ” he 
said, scarcely able to hide an anxiety which seemed 
to her queer and disproportionate. She could only 
conclude that any parade of philanthropy was dis- 
tasteful to him. 

* Charity, ” he declared, in language more stilted 
than he was accustomed to use “is the only crime 
which disguises itself under the aspect of a virtue.” But 
Zina had not been injudicious in her charity, and did 
not like him to hug that fallacy to his soul. She 
winced at his words, though he flattered her as usual, 
and declared that nature had intended her to bloom 
in an atmosphere of beauty, and that everything which 
was unpleasant should be kept out of her sight. 


184 


A Waking . 


“01 don't understand you, or agree with you 
at all,” she remonstrated in her turn. “What is 
the use of selfishly refusing to see anything that is 
uncomfortable ? ” 

Was it possible, she asked herself, that living 
as it were in one plane of existence he was shut 
out from appreciating the feelings and ideas which 
went on in the being of others in a somewhat lower 
state ? She was ready to make any excuse for his 
fastidiousness, but was determined on this occasion 
to be brave. He declared that the majority of 
the * cottagers were impostors trading on her kind- 
ness, and she angered him by arguing that it was 
the rich man and not the beggar who was the refuse 
of society. Her mind had too much time to feed 
on perplexing social problems, and she began to 
hate the personal luxuries obtained at the cost of 
suffering to the animal creation, and to inveigh 
against a system based on coercion and violence to 
one’s fellows. 

“My mother was a flower-girl; she belonged to 
that ‘separate nation’ which forms the base of the 
social pyramid; I want to know more about that 
nation — the rulers of the future,” she vexed him by 
explaining with that freedom and frankness which 
had at first attracted him, but which now seemed 
to him out of keeping with her position as his wife. 

She insisted on having her own way, carrying 
soup and puddings to the villagers, and even sitting 
up at night with a woman who had been ill, but 
his opposition was extreme, and almost violent. 

It was the nearest approach to a quarrel which 
had taken place yet. 

“You educated women are fools, too ready to 
spoil things by a kindliness which is pleasant to 
yourselves — you call it by fine names — altruism 
and all the rest of it — but there is something 
selfish in your determination to be popular with 



* 6 there’s a curse hanging over the 


place !”— See Chapter XII . 













* 











































♦ 































































. 







































Time for Reflection . 185 

the people — you are hardly to blame for a mistake 
which is common to the sex, and I suppose you 
will end by doing* like most of the others, pleas- 
ing yourself,” he said in the heat of an argument 
which seemed to her more exaggerated on his side 
than hers. 

“It does not matter whether you call it altruism 
or selfishness — fine names have nothing to do with 
it — it pleases me certainly and I like to do it, ” she 
answered with a laugh, priding herself on keeping 
her temper. 

Not the less had the iron entered into her soul 
when she found that all the appeals which she 
had made to his nobler nature had proved utterly 
ineffective, and that he had repelled them without 
remorse and without betraying the slightest sensi- 
tiveness to such appeals. 

“ Is he afraid of my talking to the people ; what harm . 
can that do ? ” she found herself asking in this strange 
experience of their mutual unfittedness, but she was 
not inclined to give way. “ Of course, there must 
be new beginnings to everything — one must accom- 
modate oneself to new conditions, ” she argued with 
herself in this beginning of her married life, when 
first of all it dawned upon her that she and her 
husband were radically different 


CHAPTER IV. 

COUNTRY LIFE. 

So the days passed on till curled and brittle leaves 
were accumulating in the hollows of the hills, and 
one morning a network of frost was glittering on 
the bare branches of the trees, making them look 
like aisles of a Gothic cathedral. 

Zina gazed admiringly at the woods in their 
“white silence,” and she had no longer anything 
to say in protest when George rubbed his hands 
together, as they sat down after breakfast by the 
fire which had been lit in the smaller drawing-room, 
remarking, “ I think we shall have an early winter, 
the frost was severe last night. The right thing is 
to have a few people at once to cheer us up. By- 
and-by, when you get used to it, I shall insist on 
a proper house-party — fill the place with people — 
and then, when I have drawn out a list, it will be 
your part to set to work to issue the invitations — 
just at present — as it is early times — we will be 
content with a few.” 


Country Life . 


187 


It destroyed her fond idea that during the first 
few months of married life her sole companionship 
might suffice for him, and that in the happy inter- 
change of thought they might be all in all to each other. 
But she rebuked herself for foolish sentimentality. 
She was not sentimental enough to suppose that love 
must be the all-absorbing, all-engrossing passion of 
a man’s life. On the contrary, she knew that 
English country life must involve country visiting 
and had looked forward to the summer when the 
house might be filled with cultured, refined and 
pleasant-mannered folks who would take their part 
in English amusements — lawn-tennis and golf. 

But unfortunately the w few people, ” whom 
George invited, emphasized the differences which 
she had begun to discover between herself and him, 
being mostly male friends who had been the habitu&s 
of the bachelor’s house. The excuse for inviting 
men had been on account of the sporting season. 

But it turned out that very few of them really 
cared for hunting, any more than they probably 
cared for shooting. 

There was generally some occasion for giving up 
adventurous sport, either the settled damp, or the 
hurricanes of wind, or the condition of the horses, and 
after a certain amount of ostentatious talk the host 
and his guests would adjourn to the billiard-room. 
There was a good deal of joking, but the jokes 
were not to Zina’s taste. For of what is called the 
shadier side of life she had seen and known nothing 
during her previous experience; her father had 
shielded her from anything disagreeable and she had 
put it from her as too disgusting to think of. Her 
extreme simplicity, and her limited idea of the 
wickedness of the world, had sometimes almost roused 
her husband’s laughter, and the laughter was all 
the louder, as she was not a religious woman, and 
admitted that the moral principles on which she 


1 88 A Waking . 

prided herself were only registered generalisations 
from experience. 

To escape from some of the visitors whose 
manners she did not like, she spent much of her 
time in long rambling walks. Her husband had 
complained that the November days were dreary, 
and that before Christmas-time it would be neces- 
sary to invite many more guests. But the month 
of November, when the heavy dews lay on lawn, 
shrubbery, and woodland, when she could watch 
the ways of the birds, no longer concealed by the 
foliage, and hear the thrush beneath her window 
practising roulades for the coming spring, did not 
seem to her dull. She rejoiced in the cold fresh 
air, in the delicate veil of gold which still lingered 
on the elms, or in the oaks in the hollows which 
yet retained their russet leaves. She would come 
home sometimes in triumph with her hands laden 
with berries or even the latest of wild flowers. And 
by degrees she grew accustomed to spending more 
of her time in the cottage homes of her husband’s 
tenants. For her ideas remained unaltered, she was 
unable to shake them off ; they even gathered 
force, being unaffected by the world’s verdict, the 
approval and condemnation of others having no 
irresistible power for her. Had it been merely a 
question of wishing to live in retirement, or a selfish 
turning away from any society but that which was 
of the highest or most intellectual, she would have 
acknowledged the truth of Layton’s strictures when 
finding that his significant looks were wasted on 
her, he said: 

“You must cultivate your powers to please and 
charm. I shall appreciate them all the more when 
they are not kept for myself — I want my friends 
to see what a delightful woman I have married.” 
It was awkward for her to explain that his friends 
were distasteful to her. But he knew it without 


Country Life . 


189 


explanation by the look of disapproval and surprise 
which he hated to see in her expressive face. He 
could not accuse her of saying much, but that 
strange secondary consciousness — telling her that all 
was not as it should be between herself and him — which 
she tried to keep in the background betrayed itself 
occasionally in her manner. 

She had read somewhere that a wise wife 
never asked questions, and hitherto she had refrained 
from asking them. But matters came to a crisis 
when she was asked to entertain some women of 
whose style she did not approve. She determined 
to appeal to Layton about one of them. 

“It is not merely that she is a divorcee — it is 
said that the world is sometimes cruelly hard on 
divorced women and I should not like to join in the 
hardness — but there is a fast tone about her which 
I don’t like — she flirts so terribly, and there are all sorts 
of gossip afloat she remonstrated with a direct- 
ness which took him by surprise. 

“My dear, you have no more in common with 
pulseless prudishness than I have myself. Don’t go 
in for prudent propriety, 9 he answered, as if he 
hoped to amuse her by his alliteration, “ but you 
have a good many fond illusions, and I am afraid 
you will find some of these illusions rather difficult 
to keep up. You must take the world as you find 
it ; I expect you to make things pleasant and not to 
sit in judgment on your neighbours. ” 

“But supposing the gossip should happen to be 
true ? ” 

“ Surely you can guess what you like, and keep 
your inferences to yourself— you are generally so 
quick at comprehending, ” he said impatiently, and 
then he dropped the subject. 

A pliant wife, as she thought to herself with a 
strange contraction at her heart, would have made 
things happier for him, but how was she to gloss 


190 


A Waking . 


over the discrepancy between her ideas and his ? 

She shrank from the idea of thus “ making things 
pleasant,” but still more from the shock of his non- 
comprehension. For she was an idealist, and when 
she tried to explain and found that he did not un- 
derstand her, she took herself to task. Did he think 
that she should have kept these feelings veiled? 
Was his mind too delicate to permit himself to ad- 
mire a woman whose excessive frankness prompted 
her to speak out? Was the fault on her side, and 
was it possible that his ideal woman was a being 
who had a whole region of thoughts and feelings 
hidden away and not open to discussion ? For 
though she had begun to have a suspicion of unfit- 
ness, the dread had not as yet occurred to her of their 
not having an inch of common ground between them. 

She had to give way, but she did so with an 
unwonted air of despondency, which made her 
unusually silent in company. After a little while, 
her depression began to weigh upon her husband; 
he missed her usual buoyancy, her brightness in 
conversation, and felt it to be necessary to remon- 
strate with her about it. 

He sought her for this purpose in her dressing- 
room before dinner. She was brushing out her 
hair, and he stood for a moment arrested by the 
beauty of the picture. The wintry days were very 
chilly, and the leaping flames from the little fire- 
place set round with china tiles were bringing 
out the lights and shadows in her face, shining on 
the scintillating diamonds on her hands, and on the 
blue-black masses of the chevelure on which she 
justly prided herself. A curiously grotesque piece 
of Japanese embroidery in black and gold which she 
used for a portiere, made a suitable background for 
the picture. It was altogether a delightful bit of 
chiaro-oscuro, and he was keenly susceptible to the 
influence of such sights. 


Country Life . 


191 

He had come to tell his wife how he resented her 
present mood, and to laugh her out of her belief in 
the desperate wickedness of the upper stratum of 
society, but as he sat down by her side with a 
lighted vesta and a cigar in his hand, he felt unable 
to bear the gaze of those limpid eyes, and far more 
inclined to relapse into his old manner of tender 
endearment. 

“You look like an advertisement for Mrs. Allen's 
hairwash,” he said, touching the hair admiringly; 
“No, it is a charming bit of genre — so homelike and 
natural ; I wish you oftener looked like it. I wish, ” 
he added after a pause, “you were more restful, 
more like other women, and not always in an un- 
settled state, speculating on things beyond your 
power, and then you would be perfect in every 
respect, ready to put in a frame.” 

She did not answer. He seemed so utterly 
unaware of the sort of taunt conveyed in his speech. 
The moment was unfavourable for explanation. How 
could she tell him that much which would have 
made life worth living for the majority of women 
had no interest for her ; that embroidery seemed to 
her a waste of time, and attending to household 
duties merely trivial in a case like her own, where 
there was so little to do? 

“ May I light my cigar ? ” he asked, as she con- 
tinued silent, and even then she did not think it 
necessary to tell him that his habit of smoking at 
all times and seasons, before dinner as well as after 
it, was a bad habit, and one which was likely to 
injure his health sooner or later. For her husband 
seemed to have an iron constitution, and never 
could talk so easily as when under the influence of 
nicotine. As he smoked he began to enlarge on the 
differences between them, his objection to her spoil- 
ing the cottagers and letting them gossip to her 
during their visits, and his desire that she should 


IQ2 


A Waking. 


accommodate herself to the idiosyncracies of his 
various guests. He tried to speak coaxingly. 

“We English people look at these things in a 
different light from the French, and you women 
are properly prudish, ” he said, as he smoked ; “ but 
really it is time you should give up a few of these 
insular prejudices.” 

She twisted her hair up with such energy that 
she tore it — it was a sign of her nervous impatience. 
Was it right, she asked herself, to talk so lightly 
of the barriers between right and wrong? She felt 
humbled, degraded that he should speak to her in 
such a way. 

Did he wish her, she wondered vaguely, to be 
like the women whose complexions could not be 
approached too nearly without fear of soiling one’s 
lips, and whose reputations equally resembled porce- 
lain ? She asked him the question in her excitement, 
and was astonished to find that he attempted to rebuke 
her for what seemed to him the vehemence and nar- 
rowness of a child. 

“Really, my dear, the world does not need you 
to set it right — ‘this is proper and that is not’ — 
stupid artificial demarcations — it will be neither 
better nor worse for all your meddling. Leave 
Mrs. Grundy to indulge in that sort of hurdy- 
gurdy grinding. I loathe it.” 

Something seemed to be falling like a drop of 
water down her back when he added, 

“You make yourself ridiculous and I do not want 
my friends to laugh at you — it is ridicule which 
kills. ” 

She did not need his explanatory comment that 
without forcing herself to say what was absolutely 
untrue, it would be easy for her to cultivate the 
manner of most society women, the manner, he 
went on to explain though he was visibly a little 
embarrassed, of gliding over tender places and making 


Country Life . 


i93 


oneself agreeable without sense of friction. Again 
it struck her that though she had never prided her- 
self on any remarkable goodness, he was evidently 
impatient with the stupidity of good women, and that 
his enthusiasm was not for goodness which he 
treated as if it were an attribute of the lower middle- 
class. 

“You must not get into the way of taking your 
ideas from Mrs. Carruthers who writes for shop-girls, ” 
he said a little sneeringly. 

“ Right principles are not to be mocked at,” she 
answered as she looked at him with flashing eyes. 

And then she broke off in her speech. For, with 
a short “ Oh, don’t let us talk nonsense ! ” and a 
hurried glance at the Louis Quinze clock, he got 
up and left her. 


CHAPTER V. 


BREAKING TO HARNESS. 

It was Layton’s way of breaking her to harness ; 
he was ready to take a good deal of trouble to this 
desirable end; he did not see why he should be 
displeased; in fact he was in good spirits, hoping 
that his difficulties would disappear by degrees. 
For he had not been able to hide from himself for 
some time past the fact that difficulties existed. 
Had he not been too much in love to allow himself 
to weigh the matter seriously, he might have had 
doubts from the beginning as to whether this woman 
would make him the suitable, yielding wife with 
whom alone he could be happy. He now saw 
that when the hindrances to attainment had been 
greater than he had expected he had flung prudence 
to the winds, after the manner of a man who was 
not accustomed to be thwarted when he set his mind 
on anything. But he was not to be disconcerted. 
He comforted himself with the thought that already 
he had inserted the thin edge of the wedge, and 


Breaking to Harness. 


i95 


by degrees he hoped to wean Zina from some ot 
her queer ways of thinking*. 

“ Half a loaf, ” as he reminded himself, “ was bet- 
ter than no bread ”, when a whole loaf could not be 
secured, and though he listened to some of his wife’s 
sentiments with very mixed feelings, he had con- 
fidence in his own power, and hoped to win her in 
time to become the submissive, amiable woman with 
whom he could glide easily through existence. 

It was inconsistent ; he was aware of the incon- 
sistency. It was the down-rightedness of this woman 
which had fascinated him at first, and her high modes of 
thought, and now — having transplanted her to an- 
other soil — he was doing his best to assimilate her 
to an easily recognised type. But George Layton 
had never prided himself on his consistency. He 
misinterpreted Emerson’s saying — that the many- 
sided man has nothing to do with consistency. 

On her part, she was ready to take herself to 
task. How was it that she had never noticed the 
serious discrepancies between his thoughts and her 
own? She remembered that she had made trifling 
confidences during their short engagement, but that 
the confidences had been all on one side; he had 
said little or nothing about his own former life. 
She had noticed, too, that when she led the conver- 
sation into graver topics he had steered gently away 
from them, and began again to talk about concerts 
of theatres. How was she to make him understand 
that though her ideas on religion were all unsettled, 
she was yet not without her higher aspirations? 

His good spirits quickly flagged, and after this, 
whenever they were again in tete-a-tete , it was his 
turn to be languid. It was difficult to suppose that 
he had any cause for anxiety, and yet the lines had 
deepened on his brows, and a look of satiety, which 
she had shrunk from once before, haunted her again 
like a ghastly unreality as it reappeared on his face. 


196 A Waking . 

“ Do you know you are not at all amusing 
to-night?” he said suddenly to her one evening, 
when between the coming and going of visitors 
there were fewer people than usual in the house. 

Was it another ghastly fancy which brought back 
to her the memory of Louis XV. and Madame de 
Pompadour, who had always to amuse him? The 
Sevres china, the wrought-iron work, and the other 
chiffons in her beautiful drawing-room palled on 
her in connection with that fancy. The coldness 
which had come between them, and the sudden 
change in their mutual positions were very enigma- 
tical to her; but, then, there was something curious 
in her husband’s smile, even when he spoke to her 
with a tenderness that was now unwonted in his 
voice, which was enigmatical altogether. It pro- 
duced a sensation which she could hardly explain to 
herself. Could it be possible that he was selfish, as 
someone had told her, with a selfishness which was 
impregnable, and wilfully blind to the rights of 
others ? 

If it were so, it could not be necessary for her to 
let him know that she was acquainted with this 
cardinal defect in his sex; neither did she think it 
worth while to make too much of this question, but 
answered it lightly, saying that she could not pretend 
to talk in epigrams, or to drop a joke into every 
sentence, as in the brilliant dialogue of some of 
our modern plays. 

Nevertheless she did her best to amuse him, while 
she was aware that she was entrenching herself in 
one of the worst forms of reserve, her deepest feel- 
ings being hidden away, and religiously preserved 
from the vulgarity of speech. It was possible, as 
she argued with herself, that this reserve might be 
the only means of preserving perfect peace between 
a man and a woman who looked at certain ques- 
tions from different standpoints, and whose duty it 


Breaking to Harness. 


i97 


was mutually to give in to one another. There 
were things which her husband ought to have 
understood without forcing her to speak of them, 
and she had discovered by this time that even if 
she could oblige herself to speak of them, he would 
assume the superior position of the man and treat 
them as of no importance. Not the less was she 
bitterly disappointed, and there were days when the 
throbbing of the excited heart, and the horror of the 
something invisible and intangible, which was inter- 
posing between them, was almost more than she 
could bear. She was glad of any trivial subject 
which did not need to be tabooed. There seemed 
to be no reason to be silent about them to Layton. 
Yet he was a man who so evidently liked things to 
be comfortable and pleasant all round that she was 
vexed with herself for not hiding the truth from 
him when one day, having ventured a little further 
than usual, in one of her lonely rambles, she had 
stones thrown at her, evidently aimed from one of 
the cottages. 

“One would think that there was something in 
my appearance to inspire feeling's of hatred,” she 
said, shewing her delicate wrist which had been 
slightly grazed by one of these missiles. “If I 
could only have explained that I intended them 
nothing but good ; but an old woman who cursed 
me shut the door in my face.” 

“Did I not tell you I had good reasons for 
wishing you not to interfere with these savages ? ” 

“ One would think there was some mystery. — 
What is there to hide?” she asked with mixed 
feelings. “Surely anything would be better than 
surreptitious doings on my part, and seeing that I 
think it better to visit some of our poor people — 
would you not have me tell you honestly of my 
intentions ? ” 

But he only answered her, “no good ever comes 


A Waking. 


198 

from meddling with these people, and trying to 
annihilate class distinctions,” speaking more sternly 
than he had ever spoken to her as yet; whilst 
she — overwhelmed by the shock of her recent 
discovery — occupied herself with winding a hand- 
kerchief round her injured wrist, and declaring that 
nothing in the world was the matter with it, and 
that in fact her feelings were a good deal more hurt 
at finding that her attempts to help people met with 
so rough a response. 

“ All the more reason for persevering. I was 
never conquered by anything of that sort, ” she added 
in a cheery voice. “If the people are as bad as 
that, they must be very wretched — and I cannot 
bear to think of anyone being unhappy,” whilst Layton 
muttered something to himself about its being hard 
that the even tenour of a man’s life should be 
interrupted by such childishness. He did not speak 
his thoughts aloud; he thought it more diplomatic 
to render his wife’s duties as chatelaine , more 
onerous than before by inviting other friends. This 
time there was no intermission; she seemed to 
have brought it on herself. There was first one 
circle of guests in the varied house-party, then 
another and another, and by degrees it became 
second nature for Mrs. Layton to perform the part of 
hostess, always graciously if sometimes a little languid- 
ly, in what was for her a new treadmill of life. 

Amongst those who had promised to visit them 
during the winter, coming soon after Christmas, 
and remaining till the spring, was Eva Capern, 
and Eva prided herself on her capability for keeping 
other people amused. 

Mrs. Capern of course had not stood still ; she 
had developed a good deal according to that law 
of nature which involves either deterioration or 
improvement. It was almost impossible to think of 
her now as the delicate and fragile woman with 


Breaking to Harness. 199 

large rounded eyes who had never struck a jarring 
note at Stuart Newbolt’s entertainments. 

She had then been always dressed in the height 
of the fashion, just as she prided herself on being 
the " smartest ” woman present now. But then 
she had spoken in hushed tones, retailing the scraps 
of information which she had picked up in her 
reading from newspapers and reviews and had 
managed to satisfy her guardian’s fastidious taste, 
though she had enjoyed life in a different fashion 
from that in which she enjoyed it at present. 

She was not only rather weary of playing at 
invalidism, but circumstances had happened which 
made it necessary for her to secure a pied a terre 
in the house of another woman who — though not a 
blood-relation — was the nearest connection she had in 
the world. Her husband — who had indulged her in 
every caprice, and had quietly acquiesced to being 
left in solitude whilst his wife went about to various 
places enjoying herself — had amused himself during 
her absence by indulging in ruinous speculations. 

His losses of money obliged Eva to exert 
herself, and she determined to do her best to “ keep 
in ” with the Laytons. 

The two women had always jarred on each other, 
and they would continue to do so wherever they 
met. The selfish, common-place, pleasure-seeking, 
manceuvering nature would always clash with the 
other which knew nothing of low motives, or petty 
self-seeking, and which would at any time be ready 
to wreck its own happiness for the sake of doing 
right. But Mrs. Capem knew that however Zina 
might wince at her ill-timed observations, she would 
never refuse an asylum to her. It might be different 
with the husband — a man easy to offend : and there- 
fore Eva determined in the playing of her cards to 
be always on the alert to propitiate Mr. Layton, 
and if need be to fight his battles. Her way of 


200 


A Waking . 


trying to “keep in” with both had occasionally the 
effect of making Zina wince. She no longer spoke 
in the languid tones which had been a part of her 
invalidism, but in an unnecessarily loud voice, 
indulging in bursts of laughter and sallies of merri- 
ment often at the expense of her hostess. 

“There was a good deal to laugh at,” Zina 
willingly admitted, though she wished that Mrs. 
Capem would not make quite so much of her inti- 
mate friendship with herself, or give her opinion so 
decidedly about her domestic affairs. 

“Fancy sitting in a garden-chair and surveying 
the view. A nice way of amusing oneself, ” jeered 
Eva “ a life fit for a cow ; that seems to be about what 
you were reduced to before we came to cheer you up. ” 

“ I thought Mr. Layton was always so fond 
of country life; at least I always understood so 
before we were married, ” answered Zina, somewhat 
coldly. 

“ Country life is a very different thing to country- 
house life, my dear,” corrected Mrs. Capem, “and 
his bachelor house-parties used to be varied 
by London — why he never missed a season in 
London. He has always been accustomed to be 
the centrepiece of an admiring circle of people, and 
you can't expect sterling silver for a centrepiece. 
You'll learn like most of us to be content with 
the best electro-plate.” 

There was not only reproach in the clear eyes 
with which Zina looked at the woman who had 
been brought up in such intimate companionship 
with herself that she could venture to say things 
which no one else would have dared to say, but 
a sudden light came into them as if some recollec- 
tion had been roused in her mind. 

“If you knew all this” — she began, and then 
checked herself as if in loyalty the subject could 
not be discussed. 


Breaking to Harness . 


201 


Eva was a little startled, a little remorseful, and 
yet touched almost humourously by the unspeakable 
things in Zina’s face. 

“ As if I ever intended her to put such ridiculous 
faith in every word I told her!” she said in an 
aside to herself, and then rattled on to hide any 
possible uncomfortableness, “ I don’t see why you 
vShould insist on putting that unfortunate husband 
of yours on a pedestal against his will. He would 
be the last man to wish it. Most husbands and 
wives do step off their pedestals directly they are 
married — you see it would be such a bore to keep 
that sort of thing up, ” and she gave a short laugh — 
“ my dear, I am afraid I am quite hardened, I have 
no pity for people who make troubles about their 
lives which don’t exist.” 

“You may be certain / make none, and that 
if I did I would come to no one about it, ” answered 
Zina with all her old pride. 

And again Mrs. Capern almost regretted her 
interference when she saw that flash in the eyes 
and that contraction of the lips. 


CHAPTER VL 


ZINA EXERTS HERSELF. 

Zina did not need Mrs. Capern’s interference to tell 
her that if she had to get into a new groove, the 
sooner she adapted herself to it the better. “ I 
wouldn’t funk it if I were you,” Eva would have 
added in the slangy talk which she could affect 
when it suited her purpose and with her loudest 
laugh, if the slightest encouragement had been 
given her. 

Meanwhile though it would have been well if 
the subject could have been tabooed between them, 
yet there were still covert hints which possibly had 
the effect of leading the hostess to exert herself. 

Whenever she saw that a lack of animation was 
vexatious to her husband she made an effort to laugh 
and talk. She taxed her ingenuity to amuse the old 
as well as the young. Had it been summertime she 
could have managed to extract diversion for her 
guests from all sorts of al fresco entertainments ; 
but as the weather still remained churlish and capri- 


Zina exerts herself. 


203 


cious she exerted all her forethought and talent 
for organisation in devising different fashions of 
indoor amusement. Dancing in the evenings, cards, 
and tableaux vivants were amongst the new forms 
of recreation suggested by Eva. An atmosphere 
of the man-milliner and the friseur seemed to 
pervade the house. The staircases and landings 
were littered with endless bandboxes and parcels. 
And Zina, who was half dazed by the new calls 
which were made upon her energy, tried to enter 
upon the changed state of things with a return of 
those bright spirits which might help her temporarily 
to forget any fancied inconveniences. She herself 
superintended the decoration of the big drawing- 
room, now utilised as a ball-room, with palms and 
ferns from the conservatories as well as suitable 
flowers, and stifled her objection to the two or three 
men whose incomes required a little padding, and 
who were evidently not averse to winning money 
at cards. And the suggestion of tableaux really 
pleased her. It woke the artist in her ; she was 
soon in her element in planning scenes from history 
and heaping up all the old brocades, satins, and 
laces to be found in the old wardrobes. 

A stage was erected in the ball-room, where she 
superintended the arrangements of the tableaux 
which her admirers declared to be “not copied, 
you know, but pictures original with herself.” The 
tableaux were a success, and a murmur of admira- 
tion greeted each fresh creation, overwhelming the 
spectators with Mrs. Layton’s wealth of resource 
and knowledge of artistic costume. But the hostess had 
scarcely a breathing space. Not only was there no 
more time for visiting her husband’s tenants, but no 
more time for exchanging observations with George 
Layton himself. It did not occur to her to suspect 
that she was carrying out a programme which had 
been arranged for a purpose ; but as she was not a 


204 


A Waking . 


good hand at trying to seem happy on the surface, 
her jests were sometimes forced, and her manner 
almost reckless. 

“ It would be all very well if human life were a 
ballet set to frivolous music, or if I could choose 
the friends I like,” she acknowledged to Eva. 

“My dear, you would not have it a fight. Each 
struggles for his own, and slays his fellows in this 
world of ours; you must choose one or the other — 
choose the ballet, ” answered that lady with a burst 
of silvery laughter. 

“It may seem all right to you,* Zina answered a 
little slowly, “but you know our opinions differ.” 

And when pressed for an explanation she felt 
half remorseful at having to hint that she did not 
like Mrs. Meredith, in the absence of her husband, to 
be looking such unutterable things at Mr. Dalton. 
It might be all very well in her character of Lucy 
in that tableau of Ravenswood, but why should she 
continue to look them after the tableau was over? 

“ What else would you have her look?” cried Eva 
with a burst of laughter. “ Half the married women 
in the world would be glad of paying off a score 
on their absent husbands — if they could comfort 
themselves that the husbands cared a rap.” 
j And then Zina wondered if Mrs. Capem had been 
consulting with George (for the two had become 
greater friends than they ever were on the Con- 
tinent) when Eva added beneath her breath: “I 
would keep those objections to myself if I were 
you. You must have learnt to talk in that way from 
living with Mary Carruthers. It is all very well for 
her and for the people she mixes with — but, to tell 
you the truth, it sounds fearfully — middleclass. ” 

| “ That is a new fling which has not much meaning, 

j unless it means that there is a break-water — very 
useful in this country, ” said Zina, holding her own 
j as she had held it in past times against Mrs. Capern. 


Zina exerts herself. 


205 


It was scarcely worth while to ask Eva what she 
meant, still less to take her seriously and to remind 
her of the eternal difference between what is lovely 
and what is not. Zina’s smile was enigmatical, 
for what would have been the use of discussing 
Mary Carruthers wdth a woman like Mrs. Capern 
or defending herself for her own fastidiousness of 
character? 

She only said to herself, “There will always be 
different sorts of society, but certainly my father — 
who brought Eva up — would not have agreed with 
her in caring for the sort which pleases her.” 

After this there was no more use in protesting 
against any arrangement; it only involved a loss 
of time. 

“ Well — I had marked a few names which I 
thought we could leave out, ” she had ventured once 
before to say to George, who did not apparently 
see the marks in the list of people to be invited. 
But now she never ventured on an opinion. “ Where 
are your notions of hospitality ? Consider it settled,” 
he would say if she attempted a protest. 

After all Eva’s philosophy might be true — that 
the majority of husbands appeared to adapt them- 
selves to the tastes of the women they were courting 
before marriage, and afterwards came the wife’s turn ; 
she had to adapt herself. 

Mrs. Capern said all this in a general sort of 
way, arching her pretty brows sarcastically. 

“ And the sooner one adapts oneself to the changes 
in society the better. For we are changing nearly 
everything, ” explained the voluble woman, who could 
chatter more glibly about the freaks of Dame Society 
than about the works of art at Florence or Venice — 
“ few married women are such prudes as they used 
to be.” 

“ Are they not ? If you mean that most wise 
women are sceptical about nine-tenths of the scandals 


206 


A Waking. 


they hear of in what you call society, I should 
say so much the better.” 

a And as to yourself, foolish girl, you ought to 
be more than content; your husband is never jealous 
of you, of your popularity, or of the men who 
admire you.” To herself Eva added, “I believe 
she thinks she is really exposing herself to contam- 
ination in his set.” And then aloud, “My dear, 
it is preposterous that a woman should pretend to 
mix in society and have such ideas as you have. 
I am an old and staunch friend, ” she added with sil- 
very laughter, “ and I can give you some good advice. 
If women are the conquerors of the conquerors of 
the soil they ought to know how to keep a man’s 
heart when they have conquered it. Humour a man 
in all his tastes. Give him a good dinner, a little 
sauce in the way of flattery; let him choose his 
own society just as he likes, and that is the high 
road to managing him completely.” 

“ If women are the conquerors of the conquerors 
of the soil they ought to exercise their power for 
the best,” Zina said, a little conscious of appearing 
to disadvantage, as she felt the impossibility of 
entering into details about her private affairs with 
her father’s ward. To tell Eva or any other woman 
of her own opinion that when the high ideals were 
lost, marriage relapsed into a mere commercial 
treaty, or to lift the veil from the sanctity of home 
would have seemed to her an offence which nothing 
could condone. 

“ It is perfection to which we must aspire, though 
we cannot hope to reach the ideal, ” she still said to 
herself, outraged more than she cared to shew, 
when Eva — who had installed herself in the house, 
with the knowledge that Mr. Capern was comfortably 
out of the way — taking advantage of the position 
of patronage in which she had formerly been placed, 
answered with a laugh which irritated her, “Is it 


Zina exerts herself. 


J07 

possible you do not really know that men are all 
the better for sowing their wild oats?” 

For though Mrs. Capern seldom attempted to 
realise the feelings and thoughts of others, she 
loved a dainty bit of scandal if that scandal did not 
become tragic. Her curiosity knew no bounds now 
that she no longer suffered from delicate health, and 
her sharp wits had already ferreted out the fact of 
the something mysterious and uncomfortable which 
necessitated the presence of so many guests in the 
house. To her chums she was far more plain- 
spoken than she ventured to be with Zina. “ Why 
the wife’s an innocent, ” she wrote to one of her 
gossips. “ He keeps her here and pretends to give 
way to her objection to living in London, and sur- 
rounds her with a set of people who play into his 
hands, whilst all the time she is afraid about him 
and tries to keep up the pretty little fiction that he 
is a piece of perfection, and we laugh in our sleeves 
because the man’s character is well known, and if 
she were not a perfect innocent she would not spend 
a day in London society without knowing the sort 
of character he bears. You may tell me that per- 
haps I ought to have inquired into all this when 
we met him on the Continent, but first of all I was 
too delicate in health and Zina was quite old enough to 
understand her own affairs, and next he is perfectly 
charming to me and as estimable morally as lots 
of other people, and it is never my way to make 
such a fuss about trifles. To tell the truth I had 
a letter from Dick, which I thought it well not to 
shew her. Why you know under any circumstances 
when each has such strongly marked idiosyncrasies 
their wills would be sure to clash. But ordinary 
human nature is not enough for Zina. It was 
only the other day I heard her declare she would 
never have married a man who had once sown 
his wild oats — not unless he had repented — and 


208 


A Waking. 


George Layton is not the sort of man to repent." 

Zina knew next to nothing of the gossip which 
was going on. She resented Eva's speeches which 
were intended for hits, and told herself that they 
were wide of the mark, stiffening into stone when 
that officious lady volunteered her good advice. 
But none the less was she conscious that her hus- 
band’s mood was no longer auspicious, whilst he 
too was aware of a sort of personal removal from 
him conveyed in her speech, and her manner which 
had cooled. If a suspicion of him occurred to her 
she tried to cloak it from herself, to hide it in 
innumerable folds ; but she might have known by the 
dull aching at her heart that it was always there. 
Had she been happier the company in the house 
might have ministered to her sense of humour. 
There were match-making mothers who bungled 
terribly and showed their hands, old ladies who 
squabbled furtively over their cards, and for the 
first time — sporting men who thought of nothing 
but foxes. But she began to feel as if she were 
always on the rack. 

The luxurious afternoon teas with the introduction, 
which she was unable to prevent, not only of cham- 
pagne but of numerous brandies and sodas, and cigaret- 
tes for both sexes, fretted her with an odd sense of her 
new house-keeping responsibilities ; and when she 
found that she was obliged to order larks, and 
pate-de-foie-gras (two luxuries which she had tabooed 
on the score of cruelty) to vary the menus for 
dinner, her irritation increased. George insisted on 
both and she had to give way, as she had to give 
way about the smoking. They were but little 
things, but little things which gave a clue to the 
tone of the guests. 

“ Michelet, my dear, declared in vain that tobacco 
drew the line between men and women. A pretty 
woman never looks so well as with a cigarette between 


Zina exerts herself. 


209 


her lips — we are coming to the days when the 
cigarette will take the place of the fan in flirtation, ” 
laughed George, when she remonstrated till, ashamed 
of her scruples, she ceased protesting. 

But it would have been so much pleasanter if 
George had been poor — oh, how she sympathised 
with Tennyson’s heroine! If George were only a 
landscape painter, or if his collars and cuffs had 
been jagged and his coat the worse for wear, she 
would have liked him better. But his excessive 
care for his personal appearance began to be revolt- 
ing, and she would have liked it better had they 
fed on lentil soup, milk and porridge, or bread and 
cheese, than on the various courses of luxurious 
food which she was expected to order twice every 
day for luncheon and dinner. 

She was perpetually hoodwinking her conscience 
when it reminded her of how low she had fallen 
from her exalted ideal. 

The woman who was a divorcee and an inveterate 
flirt still starred it in her drawing-rooms looking 
to good advantage with porcelain complexion, 
bandeaux a la vierge and pretty frocks of tur- 
quoise-blue, or delicate Nile-green. And Zina 
had not only become used to giving up her love 
of retirement and constantly living in a world of 
brilliant lights, smart dresses and white shirt-fronts, 
but she had learnt to listen to Eva’s fibs, without 
contradicting them. 

How ridiculous, as Mrs. Capem had tried to 
explain to her, to refuse to avail oneself of that 
temporary insincerity without which it would be 
impossible for the world to get on. 

“Ah I knew you would recognise it sooner or 
later,” said Eva laughing. “A woman must have 
a weapon of that kind ; a little pocket-pistol carried 
for self-protection.” 

“ It is vanity,” she said on another occasion, “which 


210 


A Waking. 


makes the world go round, I knew that sooner 
or later you would have to give in to it, like the 
rest of us.” After that Mrs. Layton kept her own 
counsel. 

She did not confide to Eva that she felt somehow 
as if drops of ink had fallen on the white ermine 
of her life and stained it. Now and then there was 
time to reflect when she retired into the privacy of 
her own boudoir, in which the resources of modem 
science had been so skilfully combined with medi- 
aeval art to minister to her comfort. Tears came 
into her eyes when she remembered how her 
husband had done his utmost to make this retreat 
beautiful. The soft radiance of electric light, shaded 
by coloured glasses, was shed upon alabaster and 
ivory which had been brought from Italy, the work- 
manship of which was said to have been superin- 
tended by Canova. A marble figure copied from 
one of Thorwaldsen’s designs stood on a porphyry 
pillar surrounded by flowering plants. The hot- 
water pipes which warmed the apartment whenever 
it was damp or cold were carefully concealed beneath 
drapery, and on the walls were pieces of tapestry 
collected also in foreign travel, in which all things 
pretty and round, from pomegranates to cupids and 
apples, were spread as a feast before the eyes. Some 
brocade curtains, ornamented with heavy old gold 
fringes and standing on end with richness — as our 
grandmothers* dresses were said to stand alone 
when our manufacturers thought more about beauty 
and durability than variety; an ebony table with 
a casket from Ghent in which the delicately carved 
doors closed on a beautifully painted copy of the 
quaint Madonna by Van Eyck. Strange animals 
from Japan, and idols from India, with the sphinxlike 
figures and writhing, mystic forms by which half- 
cultured nations have endeavoured to solve the 
riddle of this painful Earth, were all here. 


Zina exerts herself. 


211 


So were carvings of ebony, and sandalwood, 
jardinieres of Satsuma, faience plaques , beautiful 
stuffs from the looms of Persia, gleaming embroi- 
deries from the East, Sevres and Dresden china 
with Salviati glasses from Venice. It was as much 
of a museum or curiosity-shop as a boudoir, and 
yet the whole formed an interior of luxury and 
beauty such as few women could afford to indulge 
in. But George had showered luxury upon her; 
he had given her all this, like the diamonds upon 
her fingers and the bracelets upon her arms. She 
did not undervalue his gifts, but she felt crushed, 
like Tarpeia, beneath the weight of them, and 
there were hours when all these marvels of artistic 
and modern civilisation filled her with a sort of 
dread which might at any moment turn to loathing. 
She detested some of the men and women with 
whom he was forcing her to associate — the light 
tone of their talk, their jests and their laughter — 
and asked herself if the love of beauty might not 
be used to conceal the microbes of moral disease 
which were tainting the atmosphere. Semiramis — 
Cleopatra — Nero — had they not all loved beauty? 

The first winter of her married life had scarcely 
passed, and she was still anticipating the coming 
Easter, when she privately hoped that many of her 
London guests, Mrs. Capern amongst them, would 
be flitting home to prepare for their usual gaieties 
and she might look forward to having her husband 
once more to herself. But already she was beginning 
to discover that he who surrounded her with these 
objects of vertu was equally fastidious about the 
appearance of his wife. Her morning dresses, made 
in such a style as to imitate the flowing drapery 
of the Greeks, with her hair coiled round her head, 
and her embroidered slippers, had to be as elaborately 
studied as her evening costumes. And whether or 
not there was any bitterness rankling in her heart 


21 2 


A Waking. 


she had to study her toilette carefully and go down 
elaborately dressed at the sound of the dinner-gong. 
She had married a critic of women’s beauty as well 
as of the decorative beauty of his house, one who 
rallied her when she was grave on the severity of 
her outlines, and told her to beware lest her features 
should grow hard when she was an old woman. 
The knowledge that he would no longer care for 
her when she ceased to give pleasure to his eyes 
did not make her wince; it roused, on the contrary, 
the spirit of indignation, and she was ready with a 
new antagonism to flout the beauty which ministered 
to the meaner part of him. 

She would have given all that she now possessed for 
one sign of the pure affection in which she had believed 
in the past, but she refused to minister to his vanity 
by taking greater pains with her self-adornment. 

“ By Jove, if you don’t take care, you will soon be 
growing old ! ” he said one day, when the morning 
light fell full on her anxious face. 

She was not a child to complain of receiving a 
cold douche, but felt that he could have made his 
disparaging remark in a manner less chilling. She 
raised her eyes to his inquiringly. With those 
speaking eyes of hers she had asked a thousand 
wild questions which her lips could never have 
framed during these last few weeks of their sus- 
pended intercourse — questions about things indefinite 
and intangible which could never have been put 
into words. She was ready herself to admit how 
they might be the veriest light thistle-down of a 
woman’s imagination. But now she spoke on the 
impulse of the moment, and regretted her speech, 
directly it was uttered. 

“ Is it true, ” she panted out, looking at him with 
those dilated eyes, “ that you are a man soon weary 
of the best one woman can give you? Is it true,” 
she continued, lowering her voice, “that you did 


Zina exerts herself. 


213 


not mean to marry me till you were forced by cir- 
cumstances? Was the suggestion contained in that 
letter correct — after all? Answer me — my life de- 
pends on the answer.” 

But he put her off with an evasion. “ What non- 
sense is this; we have been married too long to 
make any pretence at getting up a scene, like a pair 
of quarrelsome lovers. Women are so fond of these 
comedies of errors,” he said, taking the initiative. 

He prided himself on the cleverness of his skil- 
fully-worded retort. Why should he have the com- 
fort of his house destroyed by this sort of jealousy? 
he asked himself; he was a man of the world, he 
had never pretended to be anything else, and must 
protect himself against such questions, and against 
the discussion of hackneyed subjects. 

He had little or no suspicion of her mental torture,, 
and still less of her growing disgusted when she 
declared to herself that perhaps he had won her by 
a lie — and that the whole of their married life was 
possibly based on a hideous falsehood — a gross 
deception — one which he might have known from 
the beginning that she would be certain to find out 
sooner or later. 


CHAPTER VIL 


DISILLUSION. 

The next few days were passed by Zina in a state 
of nervous excitement, in which she would hardly 
allow herself time to think, so as to realise the 
torture which her heart was undergoing. She was 
afraid of any more sudden scenes in which she 
might ask unwise questions, and willing to accuse 
her own temper rather than be ready to suppose 
that her husband could purposely have left her to 
infer that a suspicion was correct which would have 
altered their mutual relations so thoroughly. 

“ He could not have been in earnest,” she said to 
herself on the following morning, “ he merely meant 
me to understand that the question was a painful 
one, and he refused to discuss it. His irony was 
open; he took no steps to conceal it; I was a fool 
to suppose he could have been in earnest. My 
character is, perhaps, after all, a little too much 
inclined to suspicion.” 

She made up her mind once again not to be a drag 


Disillusion* 


215 


upon him, but to try to see things a little more 
from his point of view, lest everything should be 
wrecked between them. “A man so universally 
admired, and so brilliant as he is, can afford to 
admit bitter things against himself ; perhaps he 
wanted to see how much I, in my mad passion, 
could believe,” she said, taking herself to task, as 
once more she took her place at the dinner-table, 
doing her best to look radiant and smiling amongst 
the people who surrounded her — time having made 
her a better adept in trying to manage to look 
happy when appearances were deceitful. 

The habit of studying other people, and treating 
them as if they were things apart from herself 
helped her in this, and she was learning by degrees, 
amongst Layton’s friends, not to let her standard 
be too high or exacting, dimly comprehending, and 
yet not making open strictures. 

She went so far as to be vexed with herself for 
her unresponsive manner, trying hard to rouse her- 
self and spare her husband disappointment. Had 
not George been very good to her, and did he not 
deserve all the social successes which might come 
to him through her? If some of the women to 
whom he introduced her were a little difficult for 
her to get on with, there were others whom she 
liked, and she determined to continue to do her 
best for the entertainment of all, telling her- 
self that quick compliance with George Layton’s 
wishes would be the only way in which she could 
remedy the new differences between them. 

It was only one who knew her well, like Eva 
Capern, who could be struck by her pallor, and the 
occasional, reproachful look in her pure, proud face, 
or who would be likely to notice that the eyes 
which were so large and full of light would be now 
sometimes dimmed in a strange way; missing in 
them — as George Layton had missed — the bright- 


2l6 


A Waking . 


ness, the spontaneous pleasure in life, which during 
the time of her sojourn abroad had been character- 
istic. It was not likely to trouble Eva, as it 
had troubled George Layton, that her hostess and 
rival was perceptibly aging, but she did not wish 
matters to come to a crisis between Layton and his 
wife. It was too pleasant a house to visit at, and 
she watched matters a little anxiously, having wit 
enough to know that she had already jarred on 
Zina, to whom she had never proved an agreeable 
or appreciative companion, and that she could not 
interpose any more without infringing the laws of 
hospitality. 

Meanwhile, Zina pursued her programme of 
meeting her husband without uttering a word of 
reproach. She wished to' meet him as if there were 
no bone to pick between them, and Eva — who 
watched her intently— found little excuse for utter- 
ing with a scornful laugh, “ What a goose she is ! ” 
For “Zina was a goose, there was no doubt of it,” 
the woman of the world had long ago decided — a 
fool, with her fine ideals and her standards of pro- 
priety — but it was evident to her that, however 
these ideals might be shattered, the “fool" was 
determined to keep up appearances before other 
people. 

It seemed as if all might have gone well, but 
that on one evening, on her return from a stroll in 
the garden, Zina, as she came up the terraced steps, 
was attracted by the sound of voices in the entrance- 
hall. “ Be off with you ! I tell you the master is 
busy and cannot be disturbed,” said the man-servant, 
whose tones were raised harshly and gruffly. 

Zina stood listening in surprise, with the door 
ajar so that she could not be seen, and found to 
her consternation that the insolent words were 
addressed to a girl who looked almost like a lady, 
though her little cashmere dress was shabby, and 


Disillusion . 


2 17 

of a faded hue. The figure was small and youthful, 
and the poise of the head on the neck was grace- 
ful, while the expression of the little pale face was 
appealing and sad. The child — for she was not 
more than fifteen — had evidently a faithful woman’s 
heart in her slight and half-starved body. She said 
something in a low voice which she did not finish, 
for Zina stepped forward and rebuked the man 
for his rudeness. Anything like oppression to help- 
less children or innocent animals had always roused 
her indignation, and the man stood cowering before 
her as — with her usually pale face glowing with 
passion, and her arm extended as if to enforce 
attention — she poured forth her generous, indignant 
words, telling him that if he ever ventured to 
insult a young lady again he should be dismissed 
within the hour from service in her house. 

The man muttered something which she did not 
hear, and slunk off like a beaten dog rather than 
face again the fire in her eyes, and then she turned 
round to look for the child. But to her amazement 
the girl had fled. The slight figure with faded 
skirt, and narrow hips, which were rather suggest- 
ive of a boy than a girl, could just be seen flying 
round the Corner, where a plantation of laurels hid 
her from view. Zina’s first thought was to hasten 
in pursuit of her and apologise for the way in 
which she had been treated; her second to go to 
her husband and inform him of the circumstances. 

He was in his study, sitting in a somewhat 
dejected attitude, leaning his face upon his hand. 
In her state of agitation Zina entered the room 
hastily, forgetting to knock as usual, and he started 
up when he found her standing by his side. 

“ How did you come in ?” he asked abruptly. 

And she answered as laconically, “ By the 
door. ” 

He shrugged his shoulders. 


2 I 8 


A Waking. 


It was not an opportune moment. Her husband 
was evidently occupied, and it was perhaps natural 
that he should be vexed when she burst in upon him. 
Something in her panting excitement which did not 
seem to him “ good form” had evidently jarred upon 
him. It was inconsistent with the dignity which 
he had always admired in her. She might be 
icy in her manner and in her dealings with his pet 
associates, but he had always told himself in his 
secret heart that the manner in itself was superb. 
He did not admire the change in it, and he himself was 
suffering. A look of anxiety, almost of desperation, 
was on his face. It was with an evident effort that 
he roused himself even to speak to her. 

But neither fear nor expediency counted for any- 
thing in her great excitement, as she — misinter- 
preting his vexation, and nettled that he should so 
little have appreciated the efforts she had made to 
please him, crediting him with the best — said again 
“ Let me remind you that I have a right to come. 
I trust my coming does not annoy you. Who 
should tell you, if I did not, when things go on 
wrongly in this household?” And then in a breath- 
less and agitated way she poured out the story of 
the footman’s insolence. 

“I have come to you because I expect you to 
back me up in our own house,” she said, uncon- 
sciously clenching her hand, “ I am sure you will 
feel as strongly as I feel myself that a man who 
speaks rudely to an innocent girl insults me in the 
person of one of my own sex.” 

There was silence for a space of time which was 
in reality short, but which seemed to her long, 
counted by the beatings of her heart. He had 
turned slightly away from her as if all his atten- 
tion were concentrated on watching a bar of sun- 
shine which at this time of the afternoon fell 
aslant the dark evergreens near the window, look- 


Disillusion. 


219 


ing as if the sunbeams were cast of solid gold. 

She wondered, after a minute had elapsed, if he 
had heard her, or if she had offended him by her 
expressive gesture. And then, for the first time, she 
began to be frightened at the way in which his 
brows drew together, describing a thick, black ridge 
over his sullen eyes. He was not handsome so ; he was 
positively alarming; and yet only a little while ago she 
had called herself a brave woman, and had imagined 
that she could never be terrified at anything. Only 
that little while ago she could have wounded her- 
self, like Caesar’s wife, to prove her love and 
gratitude for this man. A dagger would have had 
no terror for her, but this new sort of intentness, 
with which he gazed at her as if he were meditat- 
ing his answer and intend— to frighten her, deprived 
her of her boasted valour. 

A presentiment of coming evil made her silent 
in her turn. 

At last he said: 

“Pardon me for answering you in your own 
coin — We look at these things from different stand- 
points — can there be any good in discussing them ? 
And let me remind you when you talk about rights, 
that / also have a right to my own individuality. 
The man Matthews acted by my orders, and I have 
my reasons for those orders — reasons which I do 
not think necessary to explain, even to my wife.” 

She remained staring at him — jeering at herself, 
as she had tried to jeer at herself lately for the 
foolish presentiments of her own heated imagin- 
ation. 

“I believe in the rights of man. Do you call 
that heresy, or philosophical theology?” he asked 
in the light tone of banter to which she was becom- 
ing accustomed, as she was to the scornful curl of 
his lip. “You believe also in the rights of woman? 
Well and good, but the one set of rights cannot 


220 


A Waking. 


supersede the other; you must promise me not to 
interfere with my affairs.” 

Her heart ached very painfully as she had to be 
content with this answer, but she resented the 
thought that there was a mystery behind — what 
should her husband have to do with mysteries? A 
secret kept from her by the man whom she trusted 
would be the one offence she would find it difficult 
to forgive. While she confided in him fully and 
freely, she felt that she ought to expect the same 
confidences in return. Expect? Was it likely she 
would have them? Was not this the second time 
he had not only withheld his confidence, but left 
her baffled and sick at heart, to infer the worst 
from his ominous silence. 

“It is only to try me. Oh! I feel quite sure it 
must be only to try me,” she thought a few hours 
afterwards as she dressed for dinner, doing her best 
to repress the great tide of indignation which was 
swelling in her breast. She had given orders to 
her maid not to come to her that evening, but her 
heart beat suddenly faster as she heard the sound 
of a light knock at the door of her dressing-room, 
and a letter was put into her hands by the girl, who 
said in a whisper, “ Matthews says he didn’t venture 
to keep it back, but the master would be that angry 
if he happened to know about it.” 

Zina felt almost guilty as she took the letter. It 
was in a childish handwriting and written evidently 
with difficulty: — “Lady, My sister is dying. It is 
at the same cottage where the stones were thrown 
at you the other day. That was not our fault ; my 
poor sister cried about it. I have told her how kind 
you look, and she says though you are the last per- 
son in the world she ought to ask to see, yet she 
has no one else on earth: no one but me and our 
old nurse, in whose cottage she is dying ; and she 
has something she must tell before she dies.” 


Disillusion . 


221 


The letter had no signature but a scribbled name 
which looked like “Daisy.” Zina’s heart beat sud- 
denly faster as she read it, and she began to feel 
as if she were walking on a mine. Who could tell 
what disclosures might come if she went to the 
cottage — the same cottage, the very mention of which 
had roused her husband’s anger before? 

She took her place at the dinner-table with a 
wretched sense of distrust — a sort of feeling of try- 
ing to enjoy herself just once, and after that the 
Deluge. For the first time she felt as if it were a 
miserable comfort to have these people round her, 
to be saved from a tete-a-tete just then with the 
man whom she began to dread as much as she had 
loved him ; to be obliged to talk ordinary chit-chat, 
and to see that the servants performed their duties 
properly. 

She had no longer time to be troubled by small 
conscientious difficulties, such as the paying at a 
high price, and keeping up the demand, for commod- 
ities cruelly obtained. Indeed the handing of the 
entries, and even the fear lest the ice-pudding should 
not be dished up properly (things which generally 
did not trouble her), seemed mercifully to shield 
her from the malady of thought. She sat at the 
head of the table smiling and trying to eat, making 
a great show with her knife and fork, and hiding 
the fact that only infinitesimal morsels found 
their way to her mouth. A raconteur who 
was present told tales which were greeted 
with laughter — tales capped by a lady who prided 
herself on her store of anecdotage — tant peu risqut, \ 
as she said herself. But Zina had never more 
thoroughly realised how all her own mirth had 
disappeared: the clashing chords of the merriment 
annoyed her, the jarring modulations could not 
reconcile her to the music. She did not guess 
that Eva was watching her anxiously as usual, as 


22 


A Waking. 


222 

under the cover of the laughter her brow con- 
tracted, and the comers of her mouth twitched as 
she leaned back in her chair. She was making up 
her mind to venture the desperate throw of a lonely 
walk to that cottage early on the following morn- 
ing. She knew that it would be hopeless to try 
to escape that evening, but in the morning she 
could plead her pressing need for a walk. 

She slept little that night. Her heart was filled 
with an aching pity, yet she told herself in the 
weary hours that there was nothing to alarm her, 
that she was wrong to allow herself as on a former 
occasion to become the prey of a morbid imagination, 
and then dropping asleep to dream that once more, as 
in Switzerland, she had fallen into a snare spread 
for her by a forging enemy and that the hand- 
writing was feigned — to wake again to the reality. 


CHAPTER VHX 


A FATAL DISCOVERY. 

Zina stood irresolute on the threshold of the cot- 
tage the next morning, determined not to sink to 
the moral depth of a spy, and yet conscious of an 
impending horror, which sent a chill as if of ice 
through her veins. For she had not even closed 
the door before the garrulous old woman, who had 
evidently qualms of conscience for the way in which 
she had treated Mrs. Layton before, began pouring 
out a story which made Zina’s heart stand still. 

At first she was even a little ashamed herself 
for her impulsiveness in having come, and was 
determined to keep her presence of mind in the 
emergency. It was perfectly ridiculous, as she had 
been telling herself all through the night, to sup- 
pose that she should find out anything which could 
seriously affect George; all the same it would be 
cruel for her to refuse to visit this girl’s sick 
sister; if there were a mystery, it was her duty to 
clear it up. 


224 


A Waking. 


But alas, as she listened to the old woman’s tale 
strange corroborations came to her memory! 

The story might be perfectly imaginary, or it 
might be cooked up in spite, and yet, like the 
refractory fragments of a puzzle fitting into a defi- 
nite outline so that instead of incongruities one 
begins to perceive a definite plan — it fitted into all 
that had been difficult to explain in her married life. 
It was as if her reasoning power had been in thral- 
dom before, and the iron gates swung open when 
a key was fitted into them. For the first time she 
understood, and the revelation was blinding. 

Upstairs a girl lay dying, who was younger than 
Zina — only five-and-twenty. And this girl, who had 
been a governess, had come, some years before, in 
the vacation, with her younger sister, an orphan like 
herself, to visit the old nurse who had taken care 
of them in their infancy. Mr. Layton had paid his 
addresses to her, and afterwards — unknown to the 
nurse — he had followed her to another place — a 
country place, very secluded, where she had spent 
other holidays, and in the quietness of the country 
he had gone through the ceremony of marriage. 
A child had been bom after this marriage — a mar- 
riage which had proved to be a mock ceremony, 
conducted by a mock clergyman — and the child 
was now between two and three years old. The 
young mother had fallen dangerously ill when she 
found that her supposed husband refused to acknow- 
ledge her. Stricken by fever and almost penniless, 
she had dragged herself once more to her old nurse’s 
cottage, and now, in her last hours, she refused to 
see a priest, and only asked for justice from the 
man who had abandoned her. He had offered to 
make an ample provision for herself and the child, 
but she had faced starvation rather than take his 
money. And it was still with the idea of asserting 
her innocence, that she sent for the lady who occu- 


A fatal Discovery . 


22 5 


pied the place which was rightfully hers, to shew 
what she had imagined to be her wedding lines, a 
foolish document by which she had been deceived, 
and to entreat her to help her. 

“And I also might have fallen into the same 
snare; a mere accident saved me,” Zina was think- 
ing to herself as she stood erect like a statue, 
not moving a muscle or shewing a sign of emo- 
tion. “ My instincts were correct, the snare was 
laid for me , though I blamed myself for recurring 
to the subject in a moment of passion. I know 
now why it haunted me,” the voice within her con- 
tinued as she sank into a chair, thinking, charac- 
teristically, less of the danger she had escaped 
than of the moral contamination she had incurred 
in coming in contact with one of those easy, un- 
principled, self-indulgent men on whom so much love 
is wasted, and by whom so many lives are wrecked. 

She was not what could be generally called a 
“goody” woman, still less a saintly one; she had 
thought little or nothing about Christianity since 
the days when she had discussed it with Mary as 
if it had been an intellectual problem, putting it 
aside from her as a thing she could not understand. 
Nor had she anything in common with the prudish 
British matron, who would draw her skirts away 
from touching a sister in degradation. But she 
was an idealist like Shelley, looking upon all moral 
depravity as a crime against the spiritual nature of 
man, and, to a woman of her temperament, a revela- 
tion of this kind was harder to endure than it 
would be to most women, for she had a fastidious 
shrinking from anything which was unrefined. And 
as sensation after sensation flashed upon her, she 
all at once began to shiver — not so much at the 
knowledge of the peril which had threatened her, 
as at the mental vision of the degradation which 
was actually hers. 


226 


A Waking . 


a Take me up to her,” was all she said, still 
shivering as in midwinter, though it was a warm 
day in early spring. And an hour afterwards, 
instead of presiding over the dainties at the usual 
midday meal, Zina was still sitting by the bedside 
in that upstairs attic. The light, which shone 
through the latticed windows, was so obscure that 
at first she could only see that some one lay in the 
bed, and that a ragged curtain had been fastened 
up to screen the occupant of what might rather 
be called a wooden pallet than a bed, from the 
draught of the door. The room was otherwise 
neat and clean. A small fire was burning in the 
grate, and the little hearth was freshly swept. As 
her eyes became by degrees accustomed to 
the light, she could see that the sufferer in the bed 
was supported by her younger sister, and that 
there was a strong personal likeness between the two. 
Both had eyes like agates, both had the same regular, 
small, refined features, and both the same droop in 
the corners of the lips. But the eyes of the dying 
woman were unnaturally large and wild, and her 
face painfully emaciated. 

“She has been a cruel sufferer,” said the old 
woman, who had followed, limping painfully, up the 
stairs, as she went nearer to the sick woman, and 
lay her furrowed forehead against the thin cheek 
with a groan. 

The younger woman did not answer; she was 
panting for breath. With one hand she held a small 
paper, which nothing could persuade her to give 
up, and' with the other she pointed to a little golden- 
haired child playing on the foot of the bed. 

“ They be her marriage lines, and she wants thee 
to see that she had them proper, and to promise to 
let some one take care of the child; she told us 
before thy coming that she had made up her mind 
to that y not to accept his money, but to leave thee 


A fatal Discovery . 


227 


to see to it,* the old woman explained, interpreting 
the dumb actions. 

“ There are hospitals, and places, where some 
one would see to Baby, and she thought perhaps it 
would not be too much to ask, if you would try to 
get her a ticket of admission, * vaguely interposed the 
frightened sister. 

Zina nodded her head ; she would have promised 
almost anything at that moment; all calculating 
prudences, and all minor considerations being waived 
in the presence of the death of a fellow-mortal. 
But as she drew nearer the bed and took the hand 
of the sufferer in hers, any spectator might have 
noticed, had the light been more effective, that she 
had turned of as deadly a hue as the dying woman. 
She had a more violent fit of the shivering which 
had attacked her downstairs, but controlled it, 
looking at the suffering woman with moistened 
eyes as she struggled and fought for speech, her 
sister endeavouring to help her by pouring out some 
liquid which lay on the table, and putting it to her 
lips. But she was evidently past swallowing, though 
by a determined effort she raised her weary head, and 
motioned to a large Bible which lay on the table. 

“It is for thee to pray and read,” continued the 
faithful nurse, who was evidently well skilled in 
interpreting every motion of her darling's lips ; 
“she wouldn't let the parson come nigh her. He 
called her a shameless and wicked girl, and said 
she ought to be driven away from the place.” 

Could any request have come more strangely to 
Zina? She felt confounded and stupefied as she 
opened the pages of the Bible, which had evidently 
been kept as an heirloom to be stared at rather 
than read. “Read to her yourself,” she said with 
an effort, and then was conscious of the absurdity 
of that request to the revengeful hag to whose lips 
cursing had come nearer than blessing. 


228 


A Waking. 


“Thou’lt not refuse her when she be brought so 
low — thou hast been that good to her, to come and 
see her at all, and no doubt thou’st known suffer- 
ing too, ” pleaded the old woman, in her now softened 
mood, in a whining voice, whilst the pleading was 
repeated in the longing eyes of the little sister, 
whose delicate arm shook as if palsied beneath the 
weight it was supporting. 

Zina could not read, she knew not where to turn 
to in the old-fashioned Book; but after minutes spent 
in battling with its unaccustomed pages she found her- 
self unable to resist the earnest entreaty in the 
childlike eyes of the dying creature who had no 
mother’s gown to pluck at in her great extremity. 
Some outward force seemed to compel her as she 
sank upon her knees, and stammered out “Our 
Father, which art in Heaven, * the only simple, old- 
fashioned words she could remember to utter. Both 
women were as children crying in the night “with 
no language but a cry,* 


CHAPTER IX. 


AN UNEXPECTED RESOLUTION. 

It was afternoon when Zina returned to her home, 
and even then she did not enter the house, but 
sought a sequestered part of the garden, a neglected 
part of the shrubbery which was called the 
w wilderness,” to make an attempt to collect her 
thoughts. She had need to make the attempt, for 
it seemed to her as if she had been brought in 
contact with unutterable horrors, and ill-omened 
shapes of evil — as if she had suddenly awakened to 
the knowledge of a darkness which could never 
again be irradiated for her. It was the latter part 
of April, and in the coppice amongst the underwood, 
primroses and violets were already blowing. The 
chestnuts were unfolding their sticky sheaths, and 
a delicate veil of green, foretelling the coming 
foliage, was shimmering over birch and beech in the 
more open spaces. But Zina, lover as she was of 
the Spring, saw nothing of this — neither did she 
feel the rain which was falling on her unprotected 


230 


A Waking, 


face. It was as if she had spent hundreds of years 
in the last few hours and could never feel young 
again. 

Everything around her was in bud with fulfil- 
ment of promise, though the promises of her own 
future could never now be fulfilled. In the dark 
bedroom of that cottage a new and sudden light 

had flashed upon her in which she was able to 

piece together trifles which had staggered her more 
than once in the past; trifles which she had at- 
tempted to reason away but which she now saw to 
have fatally indicated character. It was as if she 
had suddenly found a clue to all that had puzzled 
her ; the veil had been torn away against her will ; 
she wished with a groan that it had been possible 
to swathe herself in it again. For the light was 
hideous as well as blinding ; every atom of evidence 
pointing to a conclusion which was incontrovert- 
ible, every inference in the past burning itself 

into her mind. Still there was just a hope that 
George Layton would be able to justify himself. 

After a time he sought her ; he had been seeking 
her since lunch in every room of the house and in 
every corner of the garden. She had known that 
the interview with him must come sooner or later, 
and though the thought of meeting him was a 
thought to make her cringe with terror, brave 
as she usually was, she qould not help remem- 
bering with a bitter sense of humour that now 
it was her turn to resent the intrusion on her 
privacy. She had come to the “ wilderness” with 
the idea of collecting her thoughts but she 
had known that sooner or later he would seek her. 
She stood at a little distance as if she dreaded his 
personal proximity. She had always shrunk from 
men of this sort with physical repugnance, a sort 
of loathing which made her feel it impossible to 
touch them; and she now awoke to all the horro r 


An unexpected Resolution . 231 

of her position; for her ideas of wifely devotion 
were exalted, and one of these men was her — 

husband / 

For the first time in her life she was ashamed, 
with a deeper shame for his sake — a shame which 
made her hate to lift her eyes to his face. 

“Where have you been all this time? People 
have been asking after you,” he said as he watched 
her standing aside in this eccentric fashion, looking 
pale and pinched, no doubt from hunger and fatigue. 

The rain was falling on her hair and face, but 
she did not heed it. 

“ Zina, did you not know that it was very odd of 
you — almost rude — to absent yourself like this?” 

When she assented it was absently, the sound of 
her own name sending the blood rushing to her 
face. But when he took a step forward she turned 
from him abruptly, and then he saw that she was 
trembling violently, though all her attention seemed 
to be concentrated in struggling to button a refrac- 
tory glove. 

“You admit that you did know it; really your 
conduct is most eccentric,” he repeated, still advancing 
as he spoke. He was smoking as usual, and when 
she put out her hand as if she would keep him 
back he tried to interpret her action by a woman’s 
objection to smoke. Yet she had never objected in 
this way before, and he began to think he under- 
stood it all. His refusal on a former occasion 
to answer her question had probably led to some 
foolish gossip. The new sort of repugnance, the 
strung-up nerves, and the morbid horror in her face 
could have but one explanation, and he cursed the 
mischief-makers in his heart, whilst he congratu- 
lated himself that as he had changed all his ser- 
vants at the time of his marriage the gossip must 
have been kept within bounds and could do no 
great harm. It would be easy to contradict it. 


232 


A Waking . 


“What nonsense this is! You look as if you 
had been worrying yourself again. Leave meddl- 
ing and worrying to narrow-minded folk — It is 
not as if you were jealous, but you are not per- 
fectly exempt from another fault of your sex. All 
women have been curious since the days of Eve,” 
he said disingenuously; for though there was a 
certain amount of truth in the platitudes easy of 
utterance he knew that they did not meet the case. 
He prided himself on keeping his temper under 
terrible provocation, and on determining not to 
allow any expression of annoyance to escape him. 
“So long as you don’t overdo the Lady Bountiful 
by making the villagers discontented and grasping, 
there is no objection to your taking a lonely walk, 
though the ramble should be within reasonable 
bounds; you look tired and worn-out.” 

Till then she had been trying to survey the facts 
impartially and to believe him innocent till the 
charge was proved against him. But now her heart 
fainted within her, tor he himself had betrayed his 
discomfort, and the time to put him to the test was 
coming, even sooner than she had anticipated. 

“I have been to the village,” she said, “and I 
have had a very good reason for absenting myself 
from lunch, for I have been sitting with a dying 
woman who needed me much more than anyone 
else could need me.” 

Even now she hesitated and found it difficult to 
go on. Her natural shrinking from those hectic 
subjects which she had hitherto refused to touch — 
subjects which had never been discussed even at 
her father’s table, but which in deference to her 
modesty had been covered with many veils, hid- 
den away, decently buried, or only allowed to 
flaunt their unhallowed heads in disreputable corners 
of the earth — came upon her in its old force. Then 
she took courage and obliged herself to continue. 


An unexpected Resolution . 


233 


“Oh, If you had seen the sight you would be 
finable to forget it — the woful eyes, haggard and 
vild, heavy and large, which only could speak the 
reproaches her voice refused to utter. When I left 
her she had relapsed into a state of unconsciousness ; 
but oh ! I am thankful that I stayed so long, and 
still more thankful to think that before the morning 
the Angel of Death will release her from her misery. 
Death is better than life for her, and perhaps, also, 
for me A 

Her voice betrayed no emotion; her face, on 
which the rain was still falling, wore a look as if the 
feeling had been forced in and a door had been shut 
on it. “The name of the dying woman is Agnes 
Morton,” she continued, in the same level tone, 
“ her sister Daisy wrote to ask me to come and see her. ” 

And then she stood watching him with her fingers 
interlaced, wrung together till the pressure of the 
nails seemed to injure the delicate flesh in spite of 
the gloves she wore, staring at him, as he remembered 
afterwards, with wide-orbed eyes. 

The hardening of his face as her steady eyes 
seemed to penetrate him, and the ashy change in 
his complexion, as, throwing away his cigar and 
stamping on it in his fury, he uttered an oath be- 
neath his breath, confirmed her horrible dread. Her 
heart stood still, and she gave a little cry — a cry 
which was strangled in its utterance — as she felt 
that the question which she had been so fearful of 
asking had already been answered. To have the last 
hope destroyed with whieh she had fondly deluded 
herself was too much for the equanimity which she 
had hoped to be able to keep up, and she threw up 
her hands with a sudden impulse — an impulse of 
despair. 

“ Then you brought me here,” she said, in a voice 
hoarse with excitement, “ for what f To humiliate 
me to the dust?” 


234 


A Waking \ 


The blushes on her face seemed to sting it. Yet 
her words goaded him; he paced the path impatiently 
as if he would escape from a scourge. But she 
continued, more to herself than to him, “Till this 
moment I had hoped it would prove to be false— 
I had hoped against hope even when I left the 
cottage. But I see now there is no getting out of 
the circumstantial evidence which hems you in like 
an iron circle — no denying these overwhelming proofs 
of your guilt.” 

Again her face stung; she stooped to hide it from 
his gaze. 

He turned and faced her, “ I did not know you 
were so absurd; you must learn to control this 
wildness. You are not an innocent, and you ought 
to understand these things. I could not have married a 
little innocent like the majority of girls. If the woman 
you have just seen had not been unreasonable she 
would have had nothing to complain of; she ” 

“ Oh, George ! ” she interrupted, passionately, “ it 
is a poor compliment you pay me if you think ” 

“ My dear, I think nothing that you do not want 
me to think. Let us talk it out like sensible beings. 
It is the habit of some men to treat women in a 
tender, patronising manner, as if they were helpless 
infants and knew nothing about the world, and it 
is the notion of the majority of women to assume 
this helpless innocence; but you and I have never 
kept up this pretty little fiction. You have never 
pretended to go to church, say your prayers, and 
all the rest of it ; whilst on the other hand you have 
read largely, browsed, as Charles Lamb would call 
it, on all sorts of literature— and excuse me if I say 
that I naturally expected you would view these 
things in a larger, more comprehensive way than 
a sulky schoolgirl.” 

“Your joke and your joking is in the worst of 
taste,” she cried in an agonised voice, which shewed 


An unexpected Resolution. 


235 


him, somewhat to his surprise, that he was out- 
raging and offending all that was delicate in her 
nature. But she did not argue further. The subject 
had always seemed to her one of those which were 
undebatable, and she had no idea of exhausting 
her power of persuasion, or hiding her feeling of 
repulsion. 

The fierce anger which glittered in her eyes and 
sounded in her hard, deep breathing roused him as 
perhaps nothing else could have done. 

Never before had he seen that luminous intensity 
in any woman's face; he admired but was not 
touched by it. 

“ You need not turn on me with your eyes 
gleaming like a fury’s, and make all sorts of wild 
accusations,” he said, and her anger was succeeded 
by a great shock of pain. 

The change of things had been so tremendous 
from the seventh Heaven to the lowest Hell during 
the last few months that if made her forget her 
usual self-control. 

The half-truths, sharper than lies, by which he had 
tried to excuse himself, had struck like arrows to her 
heart. And yet she had sense enough to remember that 
her passion lowered her; others had suffered the same 
reverses before, and had suffered them with more 
or less self-control, and she made an effort to con- 
quer her emotion. An excruciating agony, as if 
something had suddenly snapped in the machinery 
of her brain, or as if the blood which went to her 
heart had been hindered in its flow, kept her 
speechless for a moment or two, gasping as if for 
breath. Then she said in the emotionless voice which 
she had forced herself to use at the beginning of 
the interview: 

“You asked me to talk like a sensible being, and 
I will try to do so. I have nothing more to do with 
the past, but I have to face the future. My conduct 


236 


A Waking . 


must be guided by circumstances, and those cir- 
cumstances it has become necessary for me to know. 
You married Agnes Morton under false pretences. 
Hear me speak,” she said calmly, as he tried to 
interrupt her; “it is not necessary for you to ex- 
plain that you did not really marry her — I am 
coming to that presently, and our opinions may 
differ about it — it suffices for what I want to say 
that you pretended to marry her, and that you tried 
to play the same trick upon me. I asked you once 
before, when my temper got the better of me, and 
when I did not really think it, if that anonymous 
warning had not been sent to me would you have 
brought me to a state like that? You said then — 
O how clearly I remember — that it was not pos- 
sible you could deceive me , or any other woman 
who confided in you . What about this woman and 
her childlike confidence? Knowing her story as I do 
now, I ask you once again, slowly and deliberately, if 
that letter had not been sent should I not have been 
now in the same position as that unfortunate?” 

They looked at each other for a space of time 
which seemed to each of them interminable; in 
reality it would have been scarcely appreciable to 
an outsider. 

Her bosom rose and fell, her deeply heaved sighs 
told of her distress, but having determined to strike 
home and not to flinch, she never removed her 
eyes from his face. He tried to return her glance 
indifferently as if he himself had been an outsider, 
and had nothing to do with her unfounded sus- 
picions. Then he dropped his eyelids and shifted 
his feet. In such moments our senses are miracu- 
lously sharpened, and she was aware of a little 
impatient movement of his hands, never averting 
her gaze till he again lifted his eyes, unconscious 
of a scarcely noticeable tremor of the lip, and tried 
to reassure her by a smile, as he said, “I am not 


An Unexpected Resolution. 


237 


a lawyer; how could you expect me to be up in 
all the ins and outs of Swiss law?” 

It was one more of those half-truths which involve 
a falsehood: a direct lie would have been less 
painful to her. 

She had braced herself to bear the sharpest 
twinge of agony. “It will be quick,” she had 
said to herself, “it will be soon over, but I must 
bear it,” and now she was thrown back on one of 
his old attempts to trifle with her. 

After all that had happened he could look at her 
with a self-satisfied, attempt at a smile, and try to 
deceive her still with one of those juggleries which 
a clever man, priding himself on his sleight of hand, 
can so often practise successfully on a woman who 
blindly trusts him. She hated him at that moment. 
Heaven knew that he was far enough from laugh- 
ing in his secret heart, but what was there in his 
mood which made the smile break into a nervous 
laugh, meant to be good-tempered and indulgent 
of her whims? The laugh grated on her nerves, 
and increased her feeling of aversion ; in her highly- 
wrought state it suggested more than he had said. 

“You joke,” she repeated bitterly. “Louis XV. 
joked the day when the Pompadour’s funeral passed 
by his window. He said she had bad weather. 
It is bad weather with me now, and what is it 
with your first wife, who is dying like a beggar?” 

“All this is a little fantastic, you know. Am I 
responsible for the wild fancies of a poor woman 
who is dying, cursed with a fever-stricken, morbid 
imagination ? Before giving vent to language which 
is so excitable and grotesque, and which is difficult 
for me to forgive, don’t you think it would be 
better to trust your husband a little more? ” 

He had recovered himself now, and stood survey- 
ing her with folded arms. 

Never had his admiration for her been greater. 


A Waking, 


238 

He took in all the “ points * as he stood watching 
her, the supple figure, the clear investigating eyes, 
and the air of perfect finish even at a moment like 
this. He had suffered much in the interview but 
reflected with a feeling of triumph that the oddsoi 
such a contest between a man and his wife were 
always on the side of the man. 

His smile had even become a little patronising 
as he continued, almost pityingly, “ My dear child, 
you are what the Americans would call ‘high 
falutin.* ” 

Again the words were ready to rush forth like 
a torrent from her lips, and again she controlled 
herself. If he did not understand — if his nature was 
so entirely alien from hers — of what use would it 
be to try and make him understand? Still it was 
her duty to make one more effort. 

“It is really of little consequence so far as 1 
am concerned. You formed a union before you 
married me, and you were bound by that tie as 
long as the woman lived; under no pretext what- 
ever could you violate it; so that the ceremony you 
went through with me did not really amount to 
much. ” 

“You are raving,” he said, “and your raving is 
only injurious to yourself.” 

“I do not think so,” she continued coldly and 
clearly. “ The position of myself has really nothing 
to do with k, except that I wanted to find out 
whether you meditated putting the same indignity 
upon another woman which you had already put 
upon one. I do not recognise one law for the woman 
and another for the man; such a social system 
is absurd and wrong. I never pretended to be 
much of a Christian, but I understand the principles 
of Christianity just as they were written, and 
so far as the moral code goes I agree with it — a 
moral ideal which demands everything or nothing. 


An Unexpected Resolution. 239 

Each man one wife and each woman one husband, 
and never to forsake each other under any pretext 
whatever.” 

Again, he did not wish to lose his temper, but it 
seemed to him that a sort of madness had seized 
hold of his wife. “This is childish,” he repeated, 
“and just the sort of childishness which I should 
not have expected from you.” 

It was not only that all remnant of her love had 
been killed in an hour or two, so that there was no 
possibility of reviving it; not only was it evident 
from her white, drawn face that she had suffered as 
much as it was possible for a human being to suffer, 
but that she was reasoning against her own position 
as an honourable woman in society. He had learnt 
to value her, and he could not bear it. 

“You left Agnes Morton to bear the consequences 
of your sin; it was base, cowardly, and cruel,” 
she continued in the same voice. “ If it had not 
been for my wedding you would have left me too. 
I have to thank what some people would call a 
lucky accident for the difference between us, but I 
do not wish to accept that difference.” 

He stared in astonishment. u But she — the case 
is utterly different,” he began; “you cannot know 
what you are saying.” 

“ Oh, don’t bring that up against her! You 
should be the last to say so. The world is 
brutally hard in the case of the woman, while it 
condones lots of evil in a man. Now that I have 
placed myself on a par with her, you cannot speak 
lightly of her without also speaking lightly of me. 
I am not your wife as truly as she is.” 


CHAPTER X. 


HAD SHE GONE MAD? 

LAYTON really believed that Zina had gone mad, 
talking in that sort of way like a second-rate 
actress who is miserably aware of her own failure to 
move the feelings of her auditors. Alarmed as he 
was at all that she had said — speaking with that 
dreadful effort, and her face wrung with woe — it 
had little or no effect upon his finer feelings. 

“What does all this mean?” he asked, strung to 
another device and trying to speak sternly. 

“ It means that you did me the greatest wrong 
a man can do a woman.” 

“You — my wedded wife?” 

“You had no right to pretend to marry me; you 
were married already to that poor creature.” 

Once more he had recourse to equivocation, but 
he saw that she did not believe him. It was im- 
possible any longer to ignore the repulsion in her 
face, or the accusations which she made in that dull 
and toneless voice, with all the music gone out of it. 


Had she gone mad? 


241 


“If you were what they call a religious woman 
I should say you were a cold, hard Pharisee. It 
is the way with pretended Christians — they push a 
man out into the darkness — but you, you never 
made pretensions of that sort.” And then finding 
that she looked as if she did not hear him, but 
made as though she were drawing figures on the 
gravel with her umbrella, which she never thought 
of putting up to protect her from the rain, he tried 
his former plan of assuming a tone of quiet 
authority. 

“Listen to me,” he urged, “you are tired and 
out of sorts and not accountable for what you are 
saying. These remarks may be sentimental and 
interesting, but you women want training in logic, 
and it seems to me they are not to the point. To- 
morrow morning, when you have slept upon it, 
you will admit that they are overstrained. Come 
into the house and take some food like a reasonable 
being; it is dreadful to see you in this miserable 
plight.” 

He tried to take her hand, but she drew it from 
him; it was as cold as ice. “I am sorry you are 
unhappy too,” she said as she drew it away; “but 
you have brought it on yourself, and you cannot 
be more wretchedly unhappy than I am.” 

“You are a strange woman; I know that once 
you loved me,” he said as he bent over her and 
once more tried to assert his right of property in 
her. 

The light in her eyes shot through him. It was 
the supreme crisis. His whole being was thrilled 
with agony, as the revelation that she was lost to 
him stabbed him to the heart. He tried to smile, 
but she heard the sound of his quickening breath 
and saw that the beads of perspiration were stand- 
ing on his forehead. 

“Do not dare to touch me— do not venture to 


2\2 


A Waiting. 


draw near to me,” she cried beneath her breath, 
and the sob which forced itself from her seemed to 
be too much for the delicate framework of her 
body — it shook her as a reed is shaken by the wind. 
Then she walked of her own accord into the house 
— walked slowly and with a steadier step than 
usual. Her face was set, as if it had been carved 
out of stone, and he was terrified for the conse- 
quences when he caught sight of it, scarcely knowing 
which he most feared, a violent outbreak, or that 
forced calmness in her voice which was still more 
terrible. 

He drew a deep sigh of relief when she appeared 
again in the evening, for he saw that she was 
making an effort to keep her nerves under control, 
and that she would act better in the emergency 
than he could have expected of her. Thank heaven, 
there would be no scene ; he need not have dreaded 
it, for she said nothing of what had passed, but 
joined as usual in the conversation, not wincing 
when his eyes fell on her as she sat at the head 
of the table, and then sailed out with the other 
smiling ladies. 

The badinage , the light jests, the graceful mai- 
shalling of her guests took him by surprise. He 
did not know that she heard their voices as if in a 
dream, and that when she accompanied them into 
the drawing-room she continued to see everything 
like the shifting scenes on a stage, or the visions 
of a trance. There was an expression in her face 
which held him spellbound as he saw her acqui- 
escing in every arrangement, and heard her talking 
as usual on every subject — even on politics, which 
did not interest her in the least. 

Once or twice she even made a random shot, and 
on another occasion he would have laughed back, 
“My dear, that is not like you, when you pride 
yourself on your exactitude.” But now he was 


Had she gone mad? 


*43 


quick to take her cue. And always scrupulously 
polite to his wife, and attentive to all that she said 
in company, he was, if anything, more polite than 
ever. 

It might almost have seemed as if she had de- 
cided to anticipate gossip, and had determined that 
there should be a general consensus of opinion in 
his favour, so deferentially did she appeal to him 
that evening, and so anxious did she appear to 
convey the opinion that their marriage had been a 
success, running into one of the marked types of 
the marriage of like to like. 

And George, who was one of the men used to pop- 
ularity and accustomed to female adoration took 
the deference — to all appearances — pleasantly. 

When the evening was over, she awoke as if 
from a trance, creeping into her own room as into 
a corner, like some wounded animal, to hide the 
shame for which she was not responsible, but which 
made her feel as guilty as if she had taken part 
in it. 

Her sorrow included sorrow for all the women 
who had been mistaken, and who wished that they 
could have been duped again into that state of 
ignorant bliss in which they had at onetime lived. 

Was it possible it had never dawned upon George 
that their relationship had been hopelessly changed 
by the discovery, and that she must take refuge 
somewhere. The question was where? 

She thought of the cowardly soldier who had 
been praised for his courage in not running away 
at the battle of Waterloo, and who had answered 
stolidly, “Where was we o run to?” 

Rack her brains as she might, she could think of 
no one with whom she could take refuge, but Mary 
Carruthers — Mary who was now a widow, but 
logical and unselfish in the motherly recognition 
that the needs of the living were greater than those 


A Waking. 


244 

of the dead. How Zina wished now that she had 
not sneered at the idea of the professor giving up 
his “will to live,” and how she despised herself for 
having despised the poverty of Mary’s home. Warmth 
and comfort were pleasant, but Zina had never been 
one of those who could long be satisfied with 
pleasures which were merely physical. Never had 
she shown her heart to the world and never did 
she mean to show it, but Mary would best protect 
her, and help her to hide it. Yet she wished to be a 
little calmer before she ran the risk of terrifying Mary. 

But while she debated the question a tap as of light 
fingers came at the door, which she had locked, 
and Eva Capem’s silvery voice cried — 

“ My dear, let me in, I have come to ask you 
to let me brush my hair in your room. I don’t 
know how it is,” she said, when she had seated 
herself, “but I felt that I could not sleep a wink 
to-night unless I had a good croon with you. I am 
anxious about you, and it is when we women get 
nervous about each other that we take to stimulants 
and morphia and all sorts of naughty habits. I 
fight against them for your sake. Since I entered 
your house, I positively have dropped using rouge, 
and am so moderate in alcohol that I have some 
idea of distinguishing myself as a teetotaler — there, 
don’t blush — it is all your influence! I made up my 
mind to tell you so. No, I can assure you I am 
incapable of paying compliments; you should have 
found out that by this time.” 

Having wheedled her friend to this extent, Eva 
proceeded to pump her, brushing out her fair locks 
as she said tentatively. “You influence all of us — 
even your husband. But you must not be too hard 
on him — his ideas of life are the society ideas, and 
if you have found out anything you don’t quite like 
about him, you may depend upon it he has been 
more sinned against than sinning. I said to myself 


Had she gone mad f 


*45 


when I saw you to-night, ‘ she has found out some- 
thing.’ It is of no use to deny it — you were not 
yourself. You had dressed yourself up too magni- 
ficently — your eyes looked too weary to bear 
successfully the brilliance of all those shining 
jewels — and your diamonds are splendid. But you 
talked — really my dear, I believe for once you were 
conscious that you were not quite sincere and you 
are generally so hard on us others, but you were 
a little unlike yourself — You were gay with an 
unnatural gaiety which was forced, and sometimes 
relapsed into silence. I have always said to myself, 
4 Zina is not a woman to have her individuality 
swamped in her husband’s, and if George Layton 
thinks he can succeed in effacing it he will rue his 
mistake.’ But, my dear, you will have to do like the 
rest of us — manage the men without openly finding 
fault with them. I am sure you have nothing to 
complain of; you have everything which heart can 
desire, and I am sure that your poor father — ” 

Mrs. Capem was a clever woman, but she had 
overshot the mark. If Zina had overdone her part that 
evening, Eva too had betrayed herself — used as she 
was to plot and to tell fibs to secure her object. The 
hurried way in which she spoke, catching her breath, 
betrayed her fear that the convenient pied-a-terre in 
Mrs. Layton’s beautiful house, more than ever useful 
in a life likely to be of a semi-nomadic stamp, 
might fail her. 

Mrs. Capem prided herself on being good-hearted ; 
she would not allow her conscience to reproach 
her for the part she had played in making up this 
match. She had meant no harm and had acted accord- 
ing to her lights; it was rather too strong for that 
conscience to turn round on her and twit her with 
trickery and worthlessness. 

Still there was a look almost of panic on Eva’s 
face as if she feared that whatever had happened 


246 


A Waking. 


was beyond the little skilful attempts on which she 
prided herself in the way of patching up. She could 
learn nothing from the expression of the handsome 
silhouette sharply-cut against the becoming back- 
ground of the room ; if Zina’s face had been called 
sphinxlike by those who admired it in the old days, 
it was more than sphinxlike now in its imperturb- 
able immobility. 

In the misery which had overwhelmed her Eva’s 
chatter did not signify — nothing really signified. She 
was ceasing to believe in herself or in human nature 
generally. It was all rubbish about the possibilities 
of the race — and certainly she had altogether 
ceased to have illusions about the goodness of the 
other sex. So little did she resent the interference 
that Mrs. Capem added tentatively, 

“You are no worse off than crowds of other 
women — men are all alike and women are fools who 
expect too much from them. My dear, he is a man, 
and no better than the rest ot them.” 

Then Zina roused herself to stand on the defen- 
sive, and determined to protect herself from this 
impertinent curiosity, as well as from a pity which 
would have been intolerable. She had become 
apparently unconscious, and insensible to the fact 
that such things could be flaunted in her face, as 
she interrupted the stream of chatter by saying — 

“ If you allude to my father, please remember the 
honour due to his name, ” and then she added quite 
quietly, “ you best know yourself what you mean 
by the other innuendo. When a man is as brilliant 
and successful as George he is sure to have detract- 
ors. I have never complained of anything and 
never mean to complain. When I do it will be 
time enough to give me your advice, but till then 
please remember that I take the sole responsibility 
on myself for anything which goes wrong in this 
house.” 


Had she gene mad? 


247 


“Really, my dear, it is too tantalising; you are 
one of the people to whom it is difficult to say 
things straight out, and I cannot undertake always 
to put them into unexceptionable language." 


CHAPTER XL 


TAKING REFUGE. 

It was some comfort to Zina to find herself 
alone, and to reflect that the interfering visit had 
so far been fortunate that when Eva left her piqued 
and offended, she could at least remember that she 
had heard her — the wife — exonerate George, so that 
when the time came for gossip he would be saved 
from some of the drops which might have made 
his cup more bitter. Eva determined to make her 
own position good with Mr. Layton, by quoting 
Zina, whose present mood was for self-sacrifice, and 
for utter indifference to the opinion of the world. She 
had no pity left for the “fool,” whose anxiety for 
action was so intense that it left her no time to 
reflect on the mortification inflicted on herself, no 
time to bewail the desolation of her life ; the warn- 
ing signs written in flaming letters as by the mov- 
ing hand in Belshazzar’s vision seeming to be 
inscribed on every wall of the house. 

It was as if in a few hours a gulf had suddenly 


Taking Refuge. 


249 


opened, yawning, between Zina and everything which 
had seemed natural before. In the boudoir which 
communicated with her dressing-room, she could no 
longer touch her music, which lay open on the piano, 
though she had been taking a lesson in singing but 
the day before from a master who came from Lon- 
don, as George wished her to learn from notes. She 
had begun a business-letter which lay open on the 
little inlaid escritoire , but tried in vain to remember 
what it was about, tearing it in pieces and throw- 
ing them away from her. 

The very papers and curtains seemed to palpitate 
with the thoughts which had taken possession of 
her in that house, and the remembrances of that 
last six months. 

Her wandering eyes noted once more the beauti- 
ful furniture and the collection of curios, with 
perceptions which seemed to have been acutely 
developed, and a certain deplorable atrophy of 
her natural feelings. If her lot had seemed like 
misery, directly she discovered its true meaning, she 
said to herself it had been “ gilded misery, ” and 
that it was time she determined no longer to wear 
such gilded chains. And then she began to reproach 
herself for building her faith so firmly on the 
sand. Had she been a creature without a will, 
without a sense of right, that she had allowed her- 
self to be led so quietly and unresistingly into a fool’s 
paradise? And next her ideas lapsed into confusion, 
and it was some time before she could recover her 
power of continuous thought. 

Yet she had to write, and tried to do so, looking 
in a weary, non-comprehending way at the words 
she was writing. Did it much matter however 
stupid her wording might be ? Could she ever hope 
to make George Layton understand that in this 
case the obstacle was no small one which could 
be knocked out of the way? 


250 


A Waking, 


Every sound had ceased in the house, and there 
was only the note Of a night-jar among the trees 
as she began to put together the jewels her father 
had given her; they made but a small package 
when her other ornaments and costly dresses were 
left behind her. The thought of this did not trouble 
her. “ Why should the word poverty be a synonym 
for calamity? Man is in the world to work for 
others, not for himself, and I shall have two 
children to work for now. After all, it will suit 
me better than leading the life I have been leading 
lately — a parasitic existence like that endured by 
certain of the ants nourished by their slaves,” she 
thought, trying to comfort herself by far-fetched 
ideas as she dressed herself in her plainest dress 
and crept out into the garden on her way to the 
lonely cottage just as the sun was rising with 
tints of daffodil, rose, and purple glory — touches of 
the enchanter’s wand which she did not even 
look at. 

After all, it was not her own dignity, her own 
sentiment or wounded feeling on which she was 
acting now, but her larger sense of right and wrong, 
of equity and justice. She knew that she could 
not act otherwise, and yet it was no accident, but 
steady deliberation which made her turn her eyes 
from the sky that she might not endure the heart- 
break of the unanswered question to which the 
silence could not respond — the question which 
had been asked from generation to generation. 

If she could have believed in any Infinite Good, 
or Infinite Love to sympathise with these unsatis- 
fied yearnings, she knew that her ordeal would have 
been less severe. 

George Layton, who was accustomed to sleep late, 
also rose somewhat earlier than usual that morn- 
ing. He had been taken by surprise by his wife’s 
bearing on the previous evening, and could not 


Taking Refuge . 


251 


understand her changed mood. He would have 
liked it almost better if she had shewn something 
of what she had been suffering and rather feared the 
results of her forced attempt to hide it so completely, 
though he had judged it better not to intrude upon 
her after they separated in the drawing-room. 

He tried to hide his own uneasiness even from 
himself when he found that the bed had not been 
slept upon, and that a letter directed in a shaky 
handwriting — scarcely like his wife’s — had been 
pinned to the dressing-table. When he read it, he 
was still determined to make the best of it, and his 
pride helped him in trying to shut his eyes to the 
horror of the discovery that Zina had actually 
left him, and the numerous other unpleasant things 
which must sooner or later follow on the heels of 
that discovery. 

“ Women have their tiffs and get out of them. I 
shall say that she was not well, and that I had 
given her leave to go on a visit to some friends — 
quietly in the country — without bothering herself 
with leave-taking”, he said to himself, feeling 
somewhat sick of the Japanese curiosities grinning 
at him from the walls and screens, and of all the 
articles of vertu with which he had furnished those 
rooms. 

Ye gods ! it was more than he could believe at 
first! He, of all men, as he reflected indignantly, 
ought to have been protected from such a catas- 
trophe. He had married a wife who was no “bread- 
and-butter miss,” but who was familiar with the 
classical literature of ancient Greece and Rome, 
and conversant from her own acknowledgment 
with the worst forms of evil in the world. Women 
of such cultivated intellect were reported to be 
cold; at any rate they had their own resources, and 
he had never interfered with his wife in her intel- 
lectual debauches. Her fancies were artistic, her 


252 


A Waking . 


desires, he had supposed, would be easily satisfied; 
he had at least drawn large cheques to satisfy them. 
She had had her musical orgies, and her den in 
which she could mess with paints to her heart’s 
delight. He had supposed she was the last woman 
to go off at a tangent like this. But now, if she 
chose to give him his liberty, should he not also 
have his freedom ? He had never pretended to be 
more than human. 

A few hours afterwards a lady thickly veiled, 
wearing a long cloak which hid her figure, took her 
place in the railway carriage, amongst the third-class 
passengers, for London. She had already called at 
the cottage and left enough money to defray the 
expenses of a simple funeral. It was easy to do 
this from the ample allowance which George Layton 
had always made his wife. Some of the “ pin- 
money ” had accumulated, as she had found it difficult 
to spend the whole on fripperies. 

“You must bring me the little one,” she said en- 
couragingly to Daisy, “ as soon as I am able to 
give you my new address, and I will find a careful 
nurse for her. I am going away for a little time, 
and one of the arrangements I want to make is 
about your schooling.” And though the poor girl 
burst into grateful tears, it was impossible for her 
to realise that any sacrifice would be involved, or 
that she and her dead sister had been selfish in any 
way in inflicting their troubles upon another who 
proved so ready to share them. 

The beautiful Mrs. Layton seemed so far away 
from her or from her world that she could only 
vaguely wonder why she had dressed herself so 
plainly, or why it was that her face looked so white 
and drawn in the early morning light. 

“Do not weep for your sister, she is better off,” 
Zina heard her own voice repeating, as if it were 
a truism utterly meaningless to her. 


Taking Refuge , 


253 


And then feeling like the ghost of herself, or a 
miserable atom whirled about in the shuttle of des- 
tiny, she set out for the great city — her main object 
being to live perdue — at least for a time. She remem- 
bered having heard that people who wished to efface 
themselves without leaving a trace of their where- 
abouts — so that detection could be baffled in their 
pursuit, and not a clue be discoverable — could do so 
best in London, especially at the East End. It was 
but a short time before that she had made herself 
merry at the absurdity of folks who had the unpleas- 
ant habit of disappearing in this way from their 
relatives, leaving the world by way of a freak, and 
returning again when tired of the somewhat point- 
less joke. She was vexed with herself for seeming 
to imitate such maniacs, as she bent her own steps 
to the crowded East, knowing that it would be 
foolish to attempt to dispose of her jewellery in the 
pawnbrokers’ shops, which were filled with refuse 
— the battered and broken drift-wood which the tide 
of human life was leaving festering behind it — but 
being thankful that she had still sufficient money 
for her immediate wants. 

Yet the place which she had chosen only made 
her sadder; she had forgotten that it is our own 
moods which make or mar everything for us. Had 
Zina visited it as a philanthropist her experience 
would have been different. But her heart was just 
now filled with an unconscious longing after the 
simpler life of the people— a life belonging to an 
earlier civilisation when the rules which guided 
conduct were less complex and less minute. She 
was sick of that personal casuistry which each mind 
must think out separately for itself, sick of over- 
luxury, sick of pampered indulgence. And she was 
doomed to fresh disappointment. 

Afterwards she acknowledged that she was in 
that sort of mental malaise in which her thoughts 


254 


A Waking. 


had no time to settle to anything, in which she 
still seemed to be counting the breaths of that 
dying woman. Even her own sense of personal 
injury made her somehow feel base and weak. And 
she had chosen the worst spot in which to seek 
forgetfulness, unless indeed it were such forgetful- 
ness as could only result in the extinction of Self, 
or triumph in the pessimism which revolted against 
the selfishness of prolonging human existence. 

“ It is only for a few days — only to get a breath- 
ing space, while I have time to write to Mary, and 
then I will be brave, for why should I hide from 
him? He cannot compel me to go back; he will 
not do it for his own sake,” she said to herself, 
comparing her own lot favourably with that of tens 
of thousands of working women — her suffering sisters 
in the great metropolis, of whose terrible struggles 
and temptations amidst pestilential moral and physical 
surroundings, she told herself she had thought too 
little in the days of her luxury and ease. 

She was haunted long afterwards by the look 
on some of those other women’s faces — a look 
which her own trouble perhaps caused her to ex- 
aggerate — a look sick with misery and yet making 
her ashamed of attaching too much importance to 
her own grief. When she wandered out for a lonely 
ramble the sight of one of the bridges with sluggish 
water beneath had a strange effect on her distempered 
imagination. As an artist she admired the putrescent 
tints ; as a woman she thought of the ghastly 
procession of ruined women recruited from the ranks 
of the weak and the betrayed who had tried to 
drown their misfortunes in the foul depths which 
had lured them. She could fancy it all — the shrill 
scream followed by a splash and then the despairing 
upturned face. She drew a deep breath and 
hastened on. Was there any sister whom she could 
help, or any sister who could help her amongst 


Taking Refuge. 


255 


this mass of human beings — so near to each 
other in body and so widely separated in spirit that 
none knew of the sufferings of another? Was this 
part of London with its constant influx of foreigners 
worse than other great cities? Was there more 
bodily destitution, more physical misery than in 
other parts of the world? And then to her dis- 
tempered fancy it seemed that the world itself was 
seething with moral decay like the world before 
the flood. 

She was ill and out of sorts as she had been once 
before in youth and not answerable for her pervert- 
ed fancies. 

“Why should I expect to be so much better off 
than they are, and even now I know little of the 
cold and desolate rooms, the aching bodies, the 
continual craving for food, the unloved, miserable 
lives, and the desperate battle to exist, which goes 
on from morning to night with so many of them,” 
she thought as she wrote to Mary, and asked if 
that kind-hearted friend could take her in to be once 
more a “ working woman”, toiling at her painting 
not only for her own daily bread, but for the daily 
bread of a little child whom she had promised to 
support. 

She said nothing of the young girl — Daisy — who 
would also have to be fitted for earning her own 
living as a teacher, and who could, perhaps, be taken 
in a^ a pupil-teacher at some school. The knowledge 
that Mary Carruthers knew more about the practi- 
cal difficulty of these things than she did, and would 
think her quite beside herself, prompted her to keep 
back all mention of Daisy. Neither did she tell Mary 
any of the circumstances which had led to her leav- 
ing her home. Her first impulse, which was to 
consult somebody, had to be fought against, for she 
was perfectly convinced, after sleeping upon it, that 
none of the “wise saws and modem instances” could 


256 


A Waking. 


help in her case. Mary herself had passed through 
much suffering lately, and as Zina, frenzied and 
agonised, felt as if she could bear no more, she 
attempted to steel herself by drawing out Mary’s 
last pathetic letter, and reminding herself that one 
so gentle and tender as her friend had emerged 
through an ordeal uncomplainingly. 

Zina had never sympathised with Mary in her 
devotion to the Professor, but she had felt deeply 
for her poor friend when about a year before, near 
the time of her own marriage, Mary had written to 
tell her of the shock she had received in the sudden 
death of her dearly-loved James. Dr. Carruthers 
had been found dead in his bed, and Zina with her 
vivid imagination had pictured to herself, after Mary’s 
description, one more human being lying cold and 
stiff, obeying the voice of the stem Presence, while 
her gentle friend called in vain to the white 
face pillowed on her arm, in the darkness which 
could be felt, and which seemed to strike on her 
eyeballs — the thing which had to be covered with 
a sheet being all that was left to her of the husband 
she had worshipped. 

Neither had Zina thought it wonderful that the 
letters which followed should be filled with James’s 
praises— always the case when a man is dead. Mary 
seemed to have found out when her husband was 
gone that he had been the mainspring of the house- 
hold, and did not see the humour of it wheii she 
naively wrote, “we never knew it till we missed 
him. ” 

But now nearly a year had gone by, and the 
ranks had closed up as usual. And though the 
widow had declined to visit Zina, she had moved 
from her cottage in the country, which she seemed 
to look upon as a place of the tombs, filled with 
memories of the past, and wrote that the unspeak- 
able value of every moment of time had been taught 


Taking Refuge . 


*57 


to her by the nearness of death. She held her 
children so dear that she refused to leave them at 
all, but she seemed to prosper more than she had 
done before in London. An old uncle had died 
and left her a sum of money which, with her limited 
ideas, seemed to her considerable. 

The professor had always been her most expen- 
sive child, it had ever been hardest to minister to 
his tastes. And now when her two boys had been 
taken off her hands — the one by a successful tea- 
planter in Ceylon, and the other admitted as a 
“Middy” in a training-ship — there was no longer 
any stint in Mary’s household. 

She had enough, as she said, to share with out- 
siders, for she still continued to make extra money, 
faithfully going the round of the treadmill. 


CHAPTER XII. 


ONE OF THE WORKING WOMEN, 

Mary’s sympathies were as ready as ever, when 
after a few days spent in vainly trying unaided to 
collect her old energies, Zina came to her one 
evening from the East, arriving at the well-known 
retreat in Great Coram-street, where old associations 
which she would gladly have dismissed for ever 
were recalled by every sight and sound. The little 
girls had gone to bed, but Mary had been expecting 
Zina and opened her arms at the first rustle of 
her dress, and the first sound of her step on the 
uncarpeted stairs. 

“Come to me, my dear! Come in and shut the 
door, and warm yourself by the fire. I kept it up 
till you came. I knew you would come — some 
instinct told me it would be to-night,” she said, 
gazing with consternation at the pale and almost 
inanimate form, which moved as if stiffened in every 
limb, with livid violet round the eyes, the deep 
circles evidently riven by agony. “You look as if 


One of the Working Women. 259 

the life had gone out of you. Why I do believe 
you must have walked — it is raining — and you are 
wet.” 

“ Do you suppose I care for the rain ? ” Zina 
cried for the first time passionately, forgetting her 
resolutions. “Let it wet me through and through 
— do you think I should care?” 

“But, my dear, you will get your death,” remon- 
strated the other woman with motherly common- 
sense. 

“ Do you not know that there are some things a 
thousand times w«rse than death? Dear, it is you 
who are the child and I who have aged,” Zina 
cried. Her cheeks were no longer white. There 
was a hot current within her veins, and she was no 
longer inanimate, but painfully conscious of all the 
agony she was repressing, as Mary queried in a 
low, shocked voice — 1 

“ What does it mean, dear? I hope there is 
nothing wrong between you and your husband ? ” , 

“ Don’t ask me to tell you the truth, ” she an- 
swered almost irritably. “ It means that it is all ! 
over — all that was worth having in life. As the • 
French say, Rien n'est si triste que la vtritt. It 
is enough that I have left him. ” 

“ Left him? Do you mean to make me believe 
you have left your husband ? Why I should have 
said you were the last woman to be mixed up in 
a scandal of that sort ! ” 

“ Perhaps I left him to avoid a scandal,” answered 
Zina in that curious lifeless voice which had been 
hers ever since she had tried to reason with George. ' 

She had made up her mind to confide in no one. 
No one could act as her confidante, as she told , 
Mary — Mary, who in her white innocence sur- | 
rounded by her little ones, knew nothing of impure 
lives or disordered wills ; nothing of sin, digging I 
its serpent fangs into the tainted flesh, or of the 


260 


A Waking. 


transmission from father to son of some sinister 
tendency — surely Mary would be the last woman to 
make anything of a story like hers! 

“Life seems a little impossible sometimes,” she 
only said with the wan smile which went to Mary’s 
heart; “but I do not know that it would make it 
any easier if I were to confide in you — or anyone. ” 

She begged not to be questioned further, hoping 
in her secret heart to be saved from commonplace 
talk and also from the reflections which might be 
cast upon her husband. And Mary, who knew that 
there was no use in interfering between husband 
and wife, kept her qualms to herself, and contented 
herself with petting and comforting the vagrant. 
The kind woman’s surmises were numerous, but all 
of them were dismissed as soon as she entertained 
them. Zina had neither a sarcastic tongue nor a 
petulant temper, and was not likely to quarrel ; nor 
was she of a jealous disposition, her nature being 
too high to admit suspicion. As to gossip, she 
was not at all likely to be misled by it. It was 
easy for a woman who had any wits about her to 
sift untruthful gossip and deprive it of its sting. 
Any unkind hints of that sort would only be w r asted 
on Zina ; she would treat them as they deserved. 

Yet what could have happened that one so 
generous and truthful should turn from her day 
after day, with a despairing cry, “Forgive me for 
coming to you; I felt I must come to you if you 
would take me in; for I was so lonely, and — I 
felt as if I might do something terrible, if left to 
myself.” 

“Hush, hush!” said Mrs. Carruthers soothingly, 
“do not talk so wildly. James would have said you 
were quite right not to tell me too much.” 

She was always fond of quoting James and mak- 
ing him out to have been a paragon of wisdom, 
and just now it gave Zina a horrible inclination to 


One of the Working Women . 261 

laugh hysterically. For in her secret heart she could 
not help knowing that had James been living it 
would have been almost impossible for his wife 
to brave his peevish discontent at her thus opening 
her doors as well as her heart to a vagrant. 

She envied Mary her belief in the ccerulean skies 
in which the apathetic and somewhat selfish James 
was supposed to have taken refuge, but could not 
help knowing that he would have coldly and sternly 
disapproved of her admission into his earthly domicile, 
had he been living still. Well, belief was always 
difficult ! But Zina was fair enough to acknowledge to 
herself that there was nothing in the Christian faith 
really inconsistent with progress after death. Every 
analogy in life was in favour of that progress, and 
she had a vague idea that there was something in 
the Book about those who entered into life 
maimed and blind. James was either dead altogether, 
or perhaps he understood things a little better now, yet 
once or twice Mary was faintly aware that for the 
children’s sakes — especially the sake of her little 
girls — there was a feeling of uneasiness in her own 
large heart lest she should be mixing herself up 
with matters which might bring discredit on them. 

Zina had hinted at something of the sort. Yet 
as she sometimes sat rocking herself backwards and 
forwards, with her big eyes fixed on vacancy — the 
irises large and splendid, but the pupils unnaturally 
contracted — there were times when Mary feared 
from the gaze of those scared eyes continually 
fixed on the past, that the mind of this poor friend, 
who shut her grief so determinedly within her own 
breast, might give way. 

One night when she caught her sitting in such 
fashion, crying beneath her breath, “ Oh the pain — 
the pain!” because she thought herself unobserved, 
the motherly Mary could endure it no longer, but 
catching her hands, exclaimed, “ My dear, what zHt?” 


262 


A Waking. 


Zina looked up. All the lines of her face had 
hardened, the youthful curves were no longer there. 
To defend herself at George’s expense seemed to 
her mean and cowardly. 

She drew her hands away, and gazed with intent- 
ness at the faded wall-paper, which Mary had never 
thought of having renewed. “Well to confess 
the truth,” she said, “ we had a few words. Believe 
me, perfect love is not for this earth.” The answer 
sounded unnatural, and Mary was hurt. “Is it your 
desire,” she said a little more sternly “ to make an 
irreparable breach before the world for the sake of 
a ‘ few words ’ ? Think of what you are doing — you 
have the example to society to think of.” 

“ Oh, society can take care of itself ; it is bad 
enough already, and doesn’t need me to set an 
example to it.” Her estimate of society had always 
been low and had sunk still lower since her mar- 
riage to George Layton. 

“ Would it not have been better to avoid the 
open rupture?” 

“No, it would not; none of us can be better for 
acting a lie.” 

“But people will think — it is you who will be 
despised — the world is always down on a fugitive 
wife — the world will be sure to lay the blame on 
the woman.” 

“I am quite prepared for it to do so.” 

“ It is always a hard judge.” 

“ I do not care fbr its judgment. Who cares 
about the contempt of the world ? It is the shame 
of wrong-doing for which we should care,” cried 
Zina losing her patience. She was shaken and 
unnerved, and there was a recklessness about her 
which frightened the other woman as she con- 
tinued, “I will tell you this much; he was bound to 
another before he cared for me. It was a 
previous contract — it ought to have been if it were 


One of the Working Women . 263 

not, and any previous contract renders the other 
void. That is why ” 

She did not finish the sentence, but this idea was 
evidently the key to her action in the matter. 

“That is a dangerous way of putting things. 
You mean that Mr. Layton ?” 

“ Hush, ” Zina cried, “ do not speak against him. 
1 could not bear that. 1 am the one to be blamed ; 
1 have braved that public opinion which oils the 
wheels of society and acts like unseen law, setting 
the machinery in motion without friction. You are 
light to be properly shocked at me; none of the 
guests at my husband’s house would ever have 

braved it. And yet ” she broke off again as if 

to check impulsiveness and then said, as if speaking 
to herself, “It is a farce to be made to swear to 
love and obey a man when you don’t know how 
your opinions may change about him when you 
come to know him — swear to love too, as if certain 
things did not kill love, and as if love could be 
enforced by any oath.” 

“That is another of your wild ideas.” 

“I used to have many queer ideas — highly ob- 
jectionable you would have called them, but I 
hoped they would take to themselves wings when 
I came to you. If I could begin my life over again, 
if I were only free! But I see now that when I 
was free I was simply egotistic, wrapped up in my 
own pursuits, and I trifled with the affections which 
neglected, have taken their revenge on me.” 

“ The woman’s constancy is generally so much 
greater then the man’s,” remarked Mary tentatively. 

But her observation was not answered, and Zina 
continued silent as she added, “ If he is self-indulgent, 
most men are that” She took no notice of this 
other feeler. She had long ceased to be angry; no 
dwelling on her wrongs could make them less, but 
in this case it was not her own wrongs on which 


A Waking. 


1 64 

she dwelt. Something worse had succeeded to her 
anger, the dull aching of a heart which knew that 
the corpse of a dead love could never be galvanized 
into life. If she sometimes rambled on in the per- 
turbation of a mind ill at ease she was careful to 
keep the honour of her husband’s name intact. 
A.nd by degrees Mary became used to her dis- 
connected talk and let it flow on as some relief for 
the overwrought feelings, though her feverish talk- 
ativeness, so unlike her usual quiet and restrained self, 
and the way in which she listened with trepidation 
for every footstep, shewed that the strain had been 
too much for her and the reaction had come at last. 
It was painful to see her young form bending nearly 
double under the weight of her grief, fighting it out 
so that no one else could help her, too wretched 
to trouble herself about appearances — collapsed and 
exhausted. It was like the end of all things, a 
stupefaction — a desolation in which nothing was left. 

How to shake her out of it was poor Mary’s 
puzzle. 

First she tried her old plan of chattering about 
her books. 

“ When I flatter myself I have got any new idea 
somebody else is sure to have got it before me. 
I feel like Daudet’s poet when I sit down to write 
as if I must give it up because somebody else has 
stolen all my best thoughts. Dame Nature is very 
cruel; she sets a lot of her pupils the same tasks 
at the same moment, humbugging them by whisper- 
ing separately into the ears of each of them that 
he or she is the only one to whom she entrusts 
one of her best ‘tips’, and when the poor fools are 
taken in — because ideas belong to none of them, 
but are in the air — they begin to squabble with each 
other and accuse each other of plagiarism.” 

But Zina did not hear her. 

And Mary had to change her system. She no 


One of the Working Women . 265 

longer pretended to rattle on in self-mockery about 
her own affairs, but put her arms round her friend 
and soothed her, stroking her hair as she would have 
stroked that of a tired child. For Mary had the power 
without preaching of being able to tranquillise, though 
the differences between the two women, of which 
Stuart Newbolt had been aware years before, had 
never been more emphasized than they were at 
present. It worried the exact and orthodox Mary 
that Zina should care so little for her good name; 
all her tenderness was needed not to show that 
it shocked her. 

“You are a mesmerist," murmured Zina; “you 
can bring people back to health with a touch of 
your gentle hand. I do not believe in diabolic 
agency, but if I did I should think that all illness 
was a part of the devil’s work, and people who are 
more or less angelic like you can drive away the 
devil. But that is the hard part of it. The martyrs 
could go through tortures with their firm belief in 
golden cities and great white thrones, but I have 
no such hopes to sustain me, I — " 

At last she was asleep. Evidently she had been 
light-headed, not knowing what she said, and Mrs. 
Carruthers, who watched over her for some hours 
of that night, heard her start from her dreams cry- 
ing. “ Oh, then, it was not true ! ” and address 
some woman of the name of Agnes, telling her to 
rest tranquilly — she would keep her promise. 



CHAPTER XIIL 

WAS IT A DREAM? 

The next morning Mary found Zina fully dressed 
at an early hour, her hands clasped round her knees 
and staring vaguely out of the window. 

"What nonsense did I talk last night,” she asked 
anxiously. “ Forget it. Oh, try and forget if I said 
anything about things which I ought to have kept 
a secret. I could never have talked to you in that 
foolish way if I had not felt sure you would make 
allowance for my folly; you are not the sort of 
woman to put it down in your mind.” She was 
still wild- eyed and pallid, with a tingling feeling in 
her veins, shrinking from the spring sun which was 
shining into the room, as if she wished to hide her- 
self rather than it should creep nearer to her. 

“I was the right person for you to come to if 
you were going to be ill,” answered Mrs. Carruthers, 
parrying her question. 

“ But I am not going to be ill. I have too much 
work to do— two children to look after,” was the 


Was it a Dream? 


2 67 


answer which astonished Mary. “I brought my 
paints with me. I must set to work at once.” 

And she forced herself to the task, though the 
occupation for which she had cared so much proved 
to be distasteful to her. The painting which she 
had loved could not bring more than temporary 
relief, the beautiful scenes in which she had once 
delighted had all become vague to her. They were 
inconsistent with the stupor which meant rebellion 
against fate. Her very exhaustion, bodily and 
mental, had become a sort of luxury — she abandoned 
herself to it, and work was inconsistent with it. 
After an effort to paint she awoke again to all her 
old misery; the attempt to depict beauty only ag- 
gravating her consciousness of the ugliness of evil. 
She had been wounded so deeply that she felt as 
if she could never recover her old trustful nature; 
she was haunted by the wickedness of the world; 
a constant sense of it nauseated her. The taint which 
she would not admit to be the “ trail of the serpent ” 
was all the worse if it originated in the brute-like, 
ape-like nature of man — a brutishness which inter- 
minable centuries of culture had been powerless to 
root out. She seemed to have a part in it, reminding 
herself that she too, for a doubtful good, had been 
ready to “play with hollow nuts for a stake of 
hollow nuts,” and asking herself what spell could 
have dulLed her maidenly instincts and caused her 
to fall a victim to George Layton’s plausible language? 
Of all this she was not even tempted to speak. It 
seemed to her that, 

•Better than such discourse did silence long, 

Long barren silence square with her desire.* 

“It is all too hateful; I only want to forget it,” 
was all that she acknowledged to Mrs. Carruthers, 
who had to be content with guesses. 

' For after all, as she said to herself, how could 


268 


A Waking. 


Mary comfort her? She might mesmerize her by 
her gentle touch, but their ways of thinking were 
so different. Mary, who cherished the mild convic- 
tion that obedience with unreasoning admiration was 
a married woman’s duty! Mary with her gracious 
sweetness and her gentle way of ignoring the harder 
facts of life whenever they were unpleasant to her ! 
As well might she emulate the confiding shop-girls 
who consulted the motherly woman concerning their 
‘Arries and their illusions !’ No, the thought of Mary’s 
kindness and unflagging selfishness was a stim- 
ulating thought, but she could never brace her 
courage so as to confront that gentle soul with her 
more cruel knowledge, and more subtle ideas 
respecting a difficulty such as hers. 

“Try to cry; cry and you will feel better,” that 
kind-hearted woman had said to her more than once, 
as the days passed on — the feverish hard-working 
days, in the intervals of which Zina was not tempted 
to shed tears. “It was not her way,” as she ex- 
plained to Mary as she still sat staring in front of her, 
her eyes large and wide-opened with a sort of fear 
in them which was terrible to witness, adding that 
“she supposed something had gone wrong in the 
making of her.” It was indeed as if the ingredients, as 
she further explained, had “not been properly mixed.” 

For she was certainly, according to Mary’s judg- 
ment, too susceptible in some points, and too callous 
in others. 

* If you intend to exhibit under your own name, 
and sell your pictures under that name, he will find 
you out; and then — you cannot try for a separation 
unless you have proper grounds, ” said Mrs. 
Carruthers a little nervously one day. 

She was startled when Zina answered, * I never 
thought of trying for it. It is the ease with which 
people try for separations which weakens the 
marriage tie; but we were never properly married. 


Was it a Dreamt 


269 


I shall exhibit under my maiden name.” And then 
she set to work again, as if she had said something 
which was quite trivial, determining not to let her 
feelings of discontent and misery master her. 

So the months went on till the days were begin- 
ning to be warm, and Zina — used to a luxurious 
life — was feeling oppressed by the heat, and yet 
fought against the conviction that her bodily 
discomfort must exercise an injurious influence over 
the creations of her mind. She was ashamed of 
her languor and exhaustion, ashamed of the sudden 
impulse which impelled her to cry out, “How can 
I bear my life? Will it always go on like this?” 
controlling her gestures of despair. 

" You are not your sensible self,” said Mary, fearing 
that she was laying up fresh troubles for the future. 

“ Oh, do not talk in that way. It’s of no use 
trying to be sensible. I can only do the best I can 
to patch up my broken life,” was Zina’s answer. 

And then she astonished Mary more by insisting 
on sending for the baby, whose claims on her it 
was difficult to explain. “ I am growing proud 
and unloving ; I who have nothing to give but love, 
for I have lost all my big ideas, I have no power 
left. I cannot even paint,” was the only explana- 
tion she vouchsafed to her mystified friend. 

How could Mary guess that the swelling of the 
heart, the woman’s yearning, of which in these 
advanced days so many women are beginning to 
be ashamed, for baby fingers to clasp her neck, 
and some tender and innocent creature to be entirely 
dependent upon her, was smouldering beneath her 
other agitations? Mrs. Carruthers was very human 
and free from pretences of being what she was not ; 
but it was putting her unconventionality a little 
too much to the test to insist on foisting an infant 
on her respectable establishment for whose parent- 
age no one was able to account. 


2 70 


A Waking. 


“I cannot help it if you disapprove,* said Zina 
as she gathered the child in her arms. “The 
kindest thing is silence, or I would tell you all 
about it.” 

And Mary did not press her. Both women shared 
the same abhorrence, and were unwilling to stir up 
the mud of this world’s defilement. But as soon as 
the little one made its appearance, and from the 
time when she succeeded, almost beyond her hopes, 
in placing Daisy as a pupil-teacher in a school where 
she would be well trained, Zina began to take 
greater interest in her work. 

A life of emotion which cannot be connected with 
action must sooner or later become a life of disease, 
but when we fully accept the theory that self- 
sacrifice is the true law of life, and that only by 
pain and struggle is progress made, the defect in 
our insufficient nature which debars us from 
understanding the lavish overflow of the Divine 
love, is more or less removed. Zina’s cares were 
increased, but her morbid feelings were decreased. 
It was as if an easeful feeling for which she could 
not account had taken her for a time out of herself. 

“Am I drunk with sorrow? It seems to me 
That my pain is less than it used to be; 

My pain and I have grown such friends, 

And our converse has sunk to a monotone.** 

she repeated to herself one night as she laid her 
weary head on the pillow, and then she added with 
a sort of smile, which touched her lips and was 
completed in her eyes, as she looked at the helpless 
little creature in the cradle by her side — 

“I put pain behind me, and lie so still, 

I might almost be dreaming of good, 

But dreams presuppose some symptoms of will.” 

She fell asleep with the words on her lips, and 
wondered afterwards if the quotation could possibly 
have suggested the dream which followed. It was 


Was it a Dream ? 


271 


less a dream than a vision. No vocal prayer had 
been hers; it was long since she had believed 
sufficiently to try to speak to God. And yet it was 
as if the very silence had become vocal, and a still 
small voice were speaking to her though she could 
not tell what it said. She had attempted, as many 
have done, to give more or less of her life to an 
elaboration of the vision of the beautiful which was 
always haunting her, but now for the first time 
it was hers to be haunted in a trance in which she 
was merely passive, and yet became as “a mad 
blind man” who sees. 

Her mind had not been dwelling lately on sacred 
pictures. George Layton's ill-repressed scorn for 
the oft-repeated studies of virgins and children, and 
his objection to having copies from the old masters 
hanging upon his walls, had influenced her, though 
she would scarcely have admitted it, to such an 
extent that she had only occupied herself lately 
with small genre paintings. The more extraordinary 
did it afterwards seem that the face which appeared 
to her should have been one with signs of blood 
from the crown of thorns on its brows, with the 
pleading eyes sunk in caverns as though the source 
of tears were dried up in them. The pallid lips 
seemed to tell of unutterable yearning, and the 
garments hung in stiff folds round the emaciated 
shoulders. 

She woke. Had she been haunted by some of 
the pictures she had seen ? Her memory ran through 
all of them, from the earlier pre-Raphaelite painters 
to Carlo Dolci’s Ecce Homo, or in modem times 
— Holman Hunt’s mystical paintings. If her memory 
had retained any of these it had strangely altered 
them, yet what could it be but the creation of her 
own bewildered brain? She rose and dressed her- 
self hastily, going up into the small room at the 
top of the house, lit by a skylight, which Mary had 


272 


A Waking. 


allotted to her as a studio. For it was the expression 
of the face from which she could not escape. It 
seemed to follow her everywhere with its purity, and its 
pleading, till the determination to put the enigma to 
the test was upon her — and the longing to paint was 
beginning to torment her as with the pain of hunger. 

She got out of bed, and paced about the room 
trying to control herself, and mentally reviewing 
all that had passed during the last few days, and 
her repeatedly expressed determination to work for 
bread for herself and the two children — only painting 
ordinary subjects. 

“The pot-boilers are good enough to serve their 
purpose, though of course no one pretends they are 
high efforts, and I am a little ashamed of adding 
another to the numerous people who let Art down ” 
she had said more than once. Even now she repeat- 
ed to herself the formula that little everyday 
sketches were the pictures to sell , and that she 
would never undertake any others. 

“ They are my style of work, * she had said a day 
or two before to Mary, “just as yours, dear, is 
writing for the ‘Family Sympathiser’. Why should 
either of us mind if we are obliged to earn money ?” 

That seemed to be common-sense, and so was a 
conversation which came back to her from the 
past — a talk of certain artists at her father’s house, 
who had discussed the possibility of painting modern 
pictures at this more ambitious level. 

“ It depends upon how you conceive your subject 
—whether you paint with the Strauss-Renan idea, 
or whether you try to enter, as some of our modern 
Pre-Raphaelites have tried, into the illimitable mys- 
tery which pervades the religion of the East,” she 
remembered that one of these artists had said, and 
how another had answered “I can only render it 
as it seems possible to me” with the quick retort 
from the other, “And you have combated all the 


Was it a Dream? 


273 


ecclesiastical traditions — you have changed them for 
such watchwords as natural selection, evolution or 
negation. ” 

Stuart Newbolt had stood by smiling his smile 
of polite, scarcely interested attention and it had 
never occurred to his daughter in her wildest dreams 
that she, of all other people in the world, who 
prided herself on having been educated in that 
freedom of thought which is only reached after 
severe struggles — the struggles of generations — 
should attempt a theme which even these artists 
could speak of as hackneyed, or almost impossible 
to treat with any sort of originality. But the real 
fact was she did not mean to attempt it; it had 
come upon her, and was taking possession of her. 
She was not conscious of any idea which could have 
been leading up to it, for had she not abruptly 
stopped poor Mary when that kind friend had tried 
to hint at any sort of religious comfort? 

She struggled now and fought against the feelings 
which overwhelmed her. Surely this was nonsense ! 
But how strange! 

She could no longer be guided by the opinions 
of artists, who were inclined to dissect everything 
in a materialistic and mechanical age. — She seemed 
to be obliged to obey the command of a power which 
compelled her when, hastily dressing herself, she 
began to sketch in an outline, and x the colours 
on her palette. 

Ah, how would ft be possible for the dead 
canvas to interpret the reality which haunted her 
and seemed to permeate her whole being? Never 
had she a greater conviction of her own incapacity. 
She trembled with excitement; her hand shook so 
that at first she could not steady it, but once more 
the tenacious will asserted itself. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


THE PICTURE. 

Mary found her an hour afterwards, so occupied 
that she did not hear her enter the room. She had 
apparently forgotten her necessary breakfast, and 
had to be coaxed to take it by letting one of the 
children bring it up and put it on a chair by her 
side. There was an amount of vital energy still 
about the artist, who might have been excused for 
considering herself an invalid, which astonished 
Mrs. Carruthers, who did not know that she was 
endeavouring to fix a fugitive intangible vision. 

Mary was alarmed. It was evident to her that 
her friend’s nerves were excited to an extraordinary 
degree. She herself had advised her to do whatever 
work she had to do in her own way. “That way 
lies success if success is to come to you— don’t 
listen to critics,” she had added from her own ex- 
perience. But to the practical matter-of-fact woman 
this inveterate pursuit of some new idea seemed an 
obstinacy which was almost morbid. 


The Picture . 


275 


“What are you painting?” she ventured to ask 
when she came up again to remind Zina of the 
hour for luncheon, hoping for a little conversation, 
and she was naturally a good deal astonished when 
Zina answered less cordially than usual, and then 
tried to explain with a muttered apology, “I hate 
being questioned about a subject when I hardly 
know myself.” 

“ Why do you not sit down to it? You must be 
tired of standing.” 

And again Zina put her off with a smile which 
was enigmatical. “ What would be the use of telling 
her that I am painting an optical delusion?” she 
said to herself with a shrug of the shoulders. 

What would have been the use of telling anyone 
that in her new intentness and a sort of humility 
which she could not comprehend, she felt as if she 
could do better standing before the easel, and for 
the first time could comprehend the stories of Fra 
Angelico, who was said to have painted on his 
knees? But Fra Angelico no doubt believed in the 
occult, and she, as she repeated to herself, was no 
such fool ; she was only painting an optical delusion ! 
And yet this thing was real to her as nothing had 
been for days and weeks, and as she painted it her 
thoughts were ravished and lifted up, as it were 
against her will, and her memory was verse-haunted. 

“And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot see ; 

But if he could see and hear this Vision — were it not He?” 

The words ran on, ringing their refrain on her 
brain, and she tried in vain to get rid of them, as 
she tried equally in vain to forget the sounds which 
she thought she had heard in her dream: “These 
are the wounds of my passion wherewith I am still 
wounded in tho House of my Friends.” If it were 
so, then she had a full explanation of the awful 
consequences of sin, for if a Divine being were still 
really existent, wounded continually in the persons 


276 


A Waking. 


of all His creatures great and small, and if the 
temple of their body could possibly be the house 
wherein a Divine guest were suffering — then indeed 
there would be a new solution to the social problems 
which had tormented her. She did not accept the 
solution, and yet as she painted on, it became appar- 
ent to her that her picture would preach as no 
sermon could have done. 

And the world with its anxious struggles, its 
heart-burnings, its sorrows, and even its sins, was 
forgotten for a time — all her own miserable little 
private history seemed to be put on one side. Every- 
thing personal and small seemed to be swallowed 
up; she was inspired with her lofty conception. 

The idea grew upon her day after day that it must 
have been something objective and not in her own 
mind which she was labouring so wildly to depict 
— not a figment of her imagination, not a thing 
she could have invented. She had an inward con- 
viction that a mere woman like herself could never 
even have thought of it. And oh, that avowal of 
infirmity, when her want of technical skill stood 
hopelessly in her way, and she felt unable to remove 
the veil which transposed for the minute between 
herself and her vision! She had a fair light in the 
old wainscoted room which Mary had lent to her 
for her work, but it was not good enough for a 
studio, and not only were there efforts of nervous 
anxiety in the attempt to go back to the moment 
when she had actually seen that which she wished 
to fix on canvas, but other moments as intense 
when the fever of expectation would bring out drops 
of perspiration on her brow. 

For she had not overrated the difficulties. The 
difficulties were real, too great at times for her to 
conquer, in spite of the something which filled her 
eyes, and her mind, and for which her heart labour- 
ed panting in its longing after expression. 


The Picture . 


277 


Never would she have confessed to any human 
being that there were hours, before that picture was 
finished, when she had felt as if a thrill were passing 
through her hair, such as that of which the old 
prophets had spoken in a Book she did not often read. 
Hours also when she felt for the time as if she had 
the power to render the Face — a power beyond her- 
self, though she did not know whence it came or 
when that power might forsake her. But in those 
hours it was as if another hand guided hers, and 
the figure which she had conceived with the burning 
desire to paint it, and the dread of being defeated 
(with a horror of defeat which made her almost 
crazy) grew steadily before her eyes— not preten- 
tious or ridiculous, still less mediocre or hackneyed, 
but that which had been given to her in an exalted 
moment when the majority of people would have 
called her mad. 

Her eyes often smarted and were tired with her 
work, but she covered them with her hands for a 
few moments and then went on — dreading nothing 
so much as the suspension of her mental faculties — 
lest she should lose the recollection — oh — how she 
felt as if she would give anything not to lose it, 
but to be able to follow it and keep hold of it 
through the mazes of her brain, lest it should be 
driven out by other extirpating thoughts. There 
was nothing she feared so much as imitation of 
other artists. 

To imitate nobody, not one of the sacred painters 
— to get them all out of her head and paint 
only this / 

For the first time it seemed to her that she was 
putting her whole life into her work. But she 
did not even ask herself if she meant to exhibit the 
picture as she worked on with trembling hands, the 
inexorable power of art upon her. Angels and 
even Madonnas might be the creations of men, 


278 


A Waking . 


but this was real— real, as she told herself with 
bated breath ; whatever it meant it was real ; “ it 
had been given to her.” Adverse comments might 
be made if she ventured to exhibit it; they would 
not even affect her , as she repeated to herself. 
But they might make her feel a hypocrite. For 
was it not true that this was — no longer the copy- 
ing of an inward idea — but a revelation which had 
been made to her, the credit of which she could 
not claim ? 

Nevertheless her delight was once more in 
her Art. 

And again the little white hand looked graceful 
holding the sheaf of brushes, and the upright 
figure had a new spring in it as it bent lightly 
forward, more often standing than sitting at the 
easel. 

From this time everything seemed to be changed 
for her. She no longer cried out that she could not 
live and bear it. The annoying wrangles about 
trifles which fall to the lot of many a lonely woman 
who has to fight her way in the world, and the 
uncomfortable letters or interviews which sometimes 
passed respecting the admission or hanging of her 
other and smaller pictures in one or other of the 
exhibitions, did not have power to disturb her. And 
the physical fatigue, which had followed upon* the 
strain which her mental unhappiness had put upon 
every faculty, seemed to have passed away. It was 
as if she moved in a new atmosphere in which the 
undesirable disgust at all things, and the recoil 
from the dingy surroundings in Mary’s lodgings in 
smoke-dried London, no longer worried her. She no 
longer turned against the untempting beverage 
which Mrs. Carruthers dignified by the name of tea 
when she poured it out for her noisy children from 
the ugly britannia-metal teapot, and could even 
afford to smile when that kind woman said encour- 


The Picture. 


279 


agingly, “I feel sure you will not fail, though you 
have been so Quixotic as to take the burden of 
two other lives upon you ; a strong dose of poverty 
is rather serviceable than otherwise to a young 
woman gifted like you, dear.” 

For Mary’s words were so far true that the old 
days seemed to come back when Zina had been 
able to bear any privations for art’s sake, and when 
work for the love of work had been its own reward. 
If the remembrance of that dream was fading away 
from her, it yet seemed to give force and momentum 
to her life. The new idea that there might be eyes 
watching her of which her fellow-creatures did not 
know was making her more or less indifferent to 
the strictures which would be sure to come to her. 

She had not heard from Mr. Layton; it seemed 
as if he would take her at her word. But she was 
no longer cowardly about him and could have 
smiled to herself if she had heard the comments 
which were made on two of her pictures when they 
were favourably spoken of by the critics at one of 
the next exhibitions. “Don’t repeat the scandals 
about her. She is an artist, she has genius; it is 
allowed to women of that sort to lead an excep- 
tional existence.” 

And the world which can often afford to be kind, 
because it is never hard up for a new scandal, 
made its benevolent excuses for her — partly because 
she was erratic — while George Layton escaped the 
least shadow of blame. 


CHAPTER XV. 


THE RETURN OF AN OLD FRIEND. 

Zina’S other pictures sold speedily, and for a time 
she was scarcely able to execute the orders which 
came to her for more. Probably the curiosity which 
existed about a lady of whom varying stories were 
told, and who insisted on exhibiting by her maiden 
name, may have had something to do with the 
desire which a few of the connoisseurs expressed 
to have “a bit of her work.” Nor was she ever 
hard up for subjects. Switzerland and Italy had 
supplied her with innumerable “ bits, ” and her two 
or three next pictures added to her reputation. 
These were a picturesque well in a Swiss valley 
with a peasant boy supplying his horses with water ; 
an Italian fruit-stall with women in full white sleeves 
and red handkerchiefs fastened cunningly over their 
heads ; and “ Haymaking on the mountains,” in which 
two tired sunburnt labourers were reposing on the 
grass. It was universally admitted that Miss New- 
bolt had displayed all the deft-handedness of the 
































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* 



























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. 


* 

















































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i 











































The Return of an Old Friend. 281 

French impressionist school in painting the fore- 
grounds of spring flowers, white narcissi, golden 
ranunculi, pink polygonums, and feathery umbel- 
lifers, especially in that scene of the haymakers in 
Switzerland, and people were ready enough to buy 
up her other little recollections of Venice and its 
waterways, or Bignasco and its adjacent valleys. 

But the critics differed about her ; “ a way they 
have,” as Zina quietly observed. One said that her 
principal charm was in her subtle appreciation of 
character, while she needed to study colour, and 
another, that both handling and character could be 
improved, but that her principal attraction was as 
a colourist. 

“ As if anyone could define colour, or all the 
writing about it could do any good,” said the artist 
laughing. “ Its charm is as indescribable as the 
flavour of wine or the scent of a flower.” 

Meanwhile it became necessary for her to take a 
larger and more airy studio, and one was found for 
her in an adjacent street. It separated her from 
Mary, but it also separated her from minor worries. 
She could look back with a smile on that time of 
her life when she had been vexed with herself for 
finding the petty details of a family circle stupid, 
hollow and dull, and had allowed herself to be 
fretted by the little thoughts of the little minds, and 
the little jokes which tried so hard to be amusing. 
She took a larger view of these things now, but she 
needed time to concentrate her thoughts. She 
accused herself still of being indolent and cowardly, 
and determined that even pot-boiling should be 
done earnestly and heartily. It did not occur to 
her to remember that, even in a place of retirement 
of her own, she would find it impossible to live in 
that state of exaltation which is generally followed 
by reaction in the case of every mortal. And it 
also exposed her to other evils. It made it more 


2 82 


A Waking. 


and more difficult for her to deny herself to out- 
siders. Men who heard that she had a studio would 
occasionally find it out, send up their cards, and 
ask leave to look at a few of Miss Newbolt’s pic- 
tures; so that, careful as she was to deny herself 
to these intruders, she found herself sometimes taken 
by surprise. These accidents which were annoying 
to her might have accounted for a slight return of 
her former mood. Certain it was that she began 
to work with more fitful energy, and when she 
returned in the evenings to Mary and the children 
she would be less ready to converse with them, 
sinking back into long intervals of silence. 

And when one day Mary told her of a gentleman 
who wished to be introduced to her — a Signor 
Villari — she did not know the name — a musician, 
and artist like herself — who had admired her paint- 
ings, and longed to befriend her, she gave her con- 
sent somewhat grudgingly and unwillingly, as if it 
were all a part of the necessary inconveniences as- 
sociated with her growing fame. 

“ One has to be on one’s guard against these 
Bohemians, though one is a Bohemian one’s self,” 
she explained. “ I came to London to make myself 
‘a lodge in a vast wilderness’, and it is not my fault 
if it will no longer remain a wilderness for me .” 

“ Most artists are alike, with an eye for a pretty 
girl or a beautiful woman, ” Mrs. Carruthers acknow- 
ledged, “ but this one has not seen you yet, and he 
seems to be actuated entirely by a wish to befriend 
you. He told me he could give you an introduction 
to some American dealers, and those introductions 
are not to be despised, as you have to pay a nurse 
for taking care of the child — and have ‘pot-boilers’ 
to dispose of as well as I have.” 

It seemed very chivalrous of him, as Zina mur- 
mured in answer, but it was not the first time she 
had met with chivalrous men. She did not confide 


The Return of an Old Friend 283 

in Mary who was present at the first meeting, the 
habit having grown on her of keeping difficulties to 
herself; but Mary was not deceived by the way in 
which the two people — supposed to be strangers — 
looked into each others eyes. “I should have been 
quite taken aback,” as she said afterwards, “if I 
did not feel sure it was not really your first meeting.” 

“No, I used to meet him at my father’s house. 
He always played well, though he had not much 
voice then — he has developed it since — and I sup- 
pose his relations must object to his debut as an 
opera-singer, since he calls himself Villari; his real 
name is Dewe. I think these affectations in the 
changes of names rather ridiculous,” was all she 
said in explanation, not deeming it necessary to tell 
the whole truth for fear of implicating Stephen 
though she was vexed at his device, and only ex- 
cused it because she would otherwise have refused 
to see him. 

It was on the tip of Mary’s tongue to answer, 
“ I don’t wish to vex you, but for God’s sake think 
of the gossips, they have said enough already,” but 
the recollection of how Zina invariably laughed at 
her with the quick rejoinder. “ ‘What say they? Let 
them say’ — it matters nothing what people say about 
us behind our backs, ” kept her from remonstrating. 
Zina, as she acknowledged to herself, could some 
times be led but never driven, and nine times out 
of ten she would “gang her own gait.” 

She was too proud even to speak to him about 
the ruse he had adopted. Why indeed should she 
refer to the past, or make any allusion to the days 
when she had met him at her father’s house, still 
less to those more miserable days, when he had 
allowed an ignoble suspicion to take root in his 
heart? She was a little glad that he should know 
the absurdity of that suspicion now. But for the 
rest she desired to live as an artist, only in cloud- 


284 


A Waking . 


land, or in other words, in her “wilderness,” 
ignoring the disasters she had passed through. And 
so long as he, also an artist, was content to live 
in cloudland too, and only to converse on things 
which belonged to the sphere of art, she saw no 
reason why she should not allow him to do his best 
to enliven her solitude. 

So when Stephen Dewe took to lounging in his 
spare hours into the great empty room which Zina had 
engaged as a studio, cheering her up by retailing 
to her the witty discussions and brilliant paradoxes, 
the bon mots of the literary world — such as she had 
heard at her father’s table — she saw no reason why 
she should not make an exception in his favour, 
and admit him as an old friend whose talk seemed 
to annihilate the dreary interval between the past 
and present, and bring a sense of exhilaration to 
the intellect such as she had not known since her 
father’s death. 

As time passed on the great room was no longer 
ugly and empty, for Zina had disguised its ugliness 
with palms, ferns, dried grasses, and plaster casts, 
which cost her little, and yet made a picturesque 
litter. 

She had her anatomical models, and even her 
skeleton which was reverently covered up after she 
had studied from it, much to her visitor’s amusement, 
but her other surroundings were beautiful. For Zina, 
who did not like things new, had managed to pick 
up some pieces of deliciously faded silk covered 
with old embroidery which she had bought for 
a mere song because other people scorned them. 
One of the old pieces of embroidery was even moth- 
eaten, but she insisted on keeping it because it 
reminded her of a bit of Italian tapestry, with golden 
fruit and winged boys, purchased at Florence, which 
she had left behind her in her old home. She loved these 
things for their intrinsic beauty and it never occurred 


The Return of an Old Friend. 285 

to her to think of the pretty background they supplied 
to her own graceful figure seated at the easel, robed 
in sage-green cashmere, which also was economical 
as Mary had cut it out, and Mary’s daughters helped 
to make it for her with the sewing-machine which 
manufactured nearly everything in the Carruthers’ 
household. Yet it had the artist’s touch about it, 
and fitted her like a glove. 

Stephen Dewe shewed tact. He seldom spoke 
of himself, and never referred to the past, but he 
could be entertaining and even witty; his career 
had developed him. 

And more than once, to her astonishment, Zina 
found herself ready to joke in answer, and to won- 
der why she had so dreaded meeting again with 
this man, who bore so slight a likeness to the 
undeveloped Stephen Dewe of her earlier recollec- 
tions. It seemed no such important or terrible 
affair after all. Her nerves must have been over- 
strained with morbid brooding over trifles, when 
she had admitted to herself that if Stephen Dewe 
had not been diplomatic — introducing himself, in 
Mary’s presence, under a pseudonyme which sur- 
prised her — she would certainly have refused to see 
him, and more decidedly than she declined to see 
other men, who, once admitted, would have buzzed 
about her like flies. 

“ It was foolish and self-conscious of me, ” she 
thought to herself, “ as if that love-story had not 
been dropped so long ago that it would be impos- 
sible for him to take up the threads of it even if I 
were not as I am — a woman doomed to long 
widowhood, and wedded to misfortune.” 

She had honestly striven to renounce all recollec- 
tion of former happiness, and never for an instant 
suspected fate of forging fresh links to bring her 
into contact with a former lover; yet, unconventional 
as ever, she did not know how to define the exact 


286 


A Waking . 


standard of manner in a case so complicated. He 
had suggested a piano as an ornament which might 
be useful at the farthest corner of the studio, and 
she — feeling that she could not accept a favour from 
him — made a show of consenting, and hired a piano 
herself, not knowing that by the subtle influence of 
music she was supplying him once more with the 
power of bringing mind to bear upon mind. For music 
is one of the mysteries which transcends the gift of 
speech, with a means of awakening the tender emotion 
which no words can ever equal. “ Is music a forgotten 
language of which the sense is lost while the sound 
only remains ? Is it reminiscence ? Is it the primeval 
language, — or the language of a future state of 
existence?” an Italian thinker has asked. But that 
it had a power of interfusing unexpressed sym- 
pathetic thought into the innermost nature of 
any sensitive being was unsuspected by one of these 
two people. Nor did Zina guess when she listened 
to the dulcet harmonies, with that sharp pain at the 
heart which enervated her, and to which she had 
become accustomed so long ago, that these sounds 
were drawing them together as by an irresistible force. 

At their first meeting Stephen Dewe had thought 
her less beautiful. Something had changed in her 
face; the brilliancy of the eyes had suddenly become 
extinguished. He was aware of the subtle differ- 
ence, though the majority of people would have 
seen little alteration in her. She had indeed from 
the first made up her mind not to M wear her heart 
on her sleeve” and latterly it had been her habit 
when looking at herself in the mirror to determine 
to let no wrinkle — no drawn face — betray her to 
the outward world. 

Now and then those same eyes shone with a 
strange far-away light which he did not understand. 

He had heard fragments of her story, and piecing 
them together had judged the husband rather than 


The Return of an Old Friend. 287 

the wife, reproaching himself bitterly for his weak 
ness in having lost her, and yet, inconsistently 
enough, he had suspected her of attitudinising 
before the world, in an attitude common, as he 
thought bitterly, to her sex. 

But after a time he changed his opinion about 
this last indictment. Zina was simple as ever, and 
her own worst enemy, exalted as ever in her ideal- 
ism, and only too ready to accuse herself of faults 
of which she was innocent as a baby. He expe- 
rienced all the pleasure he had felt in playing to 
her when she had been a simple child — as if her 
senses had been more acute than other peoples. 
He remembered how, in the old days when he had 
known her intimately, the smell of the rain had been 
delightful to her, and the sunshine had affected her 
pleasurably with a new joy in existence. And 
now to these childish impressions were added the 
intellectual and spiritual development of a woman 
who had thought, felt, and suffered in a way which 
seemed to be revealed to him by the telepathy 
between them. He began to thank the great masters, 
ancient and modem — Bach, Handel, Schubert, Rubin- 
stein, Wagner, and Grieg — who supplied him with 
the means of inducing something of the same state 
of mind in her which he felt to be in himself. 

It reminded her of the former days when, in the 
seclusion of her father’s house, he had been in the 
habit of improvising and reproducing the divine 
melodies which were continually entrancing her, 
but which, unaided, she could never reproduce. He 
alone of all others seemed to have the power to 
help her to forget the past, and seize the beauty 
which eluded her when she tried to paint it. She 
was never weary of listening to him. Now it would 
be one of Chopin’s intricate waltzes winding in and 
out in delicious mazes of sound, and now one of 
Beethoven’s pathetic movements full of aspiration 


288 


A Waking, 


and delicate feeling-, which seemed to bring her 
inspiration and comfort chasing away the bitterness 
of despair. 

Her gentle “thank you” as she looked up from 
her work, or the pleading “go on — one wants to 
hear that twice,” were all that he needed, whilst 
only to look at her picturesque head, draped some- 
times in a becoming fichu and to please himself 
with her winning manner was all the reward he needed. 

Onjg day he wandered into the studio where she 
was sitting as usual painting, with signs of weari- 
ness in her drooping figure, and for the first time 
the conversation drifted into the personal, he begging 
her not to work so hard. “ It is hateful to see you 
fagging like this, ” he said, as he went to the piano 
and struck a few chords on it. Then, without 
waiting for her answer, he began to sing. It was 
one of the last new songs of the great German 
composer, Johannes Brahms. The theme was of 
hope, of life, of love. Every note, every pause, 
every nuanceoi expression in thehighly-cultivatedtenor 
voice with its full rich timbre conveyed a definite 
meaning to the listener. He had counted on the 
effect it would produce just as a skilful physician 
could calculate on the effect of a drug, and smiled 
to himself as he saw the lightening of her eyes. 

“I must not be a creature of impulse; I was that 
once, with time slipping away and nothing achieved, ” 
she said. 

“ There is such a thing as being womanly without 
being womanish. You are an adept at your art, 
but you are not one of those unsexed women who 
can fight with men for their daily bread.” 

He played as he talked and she put down her 
brush in an attitude of thoughtful, not unpleasant, 
meditation, the resonance of the full chords rousing 
magnetic feeling in nerves and brain. 

And once more he sang in tones which allured 


The Return of an Old Friend. 289 

and vibrated, supplemented by the bewitching strain 
of a running accompaniment on the piano. This 
time he had chosen an Italian song, every note 
corresponding to some unuttered human feeling, 
unexpressed in speech. It was a song which shewed 
off the full compass of his voice, rising like a flute 
in the upper notes, and then again descending to 
solemn organ-fulness in the lower ones. 

The change in Zina’s face became marked as 
she listened. And once again the pathos and the 
pity of human life were revealed to her in the surg- 
ing restless chords as he plunged into a morceau of 
Wagner’s wildest music, the last notes climbing 
higher and yet higher as if they would take the 
seventh heaven by storm, and repeat the offence of 
Prometheus by stealing fire from Paradise. 

Zina sighed. Every nerve in her will was 
in subjection to her emotion. And again he 
recalled the girlish days when her eyes had filled 
at the same sounds with passionate adoration, and 
when he — fool that he was — had undervalued that 
dangerous, intoxicating, worshipping sort of love, 
as for a hero or a demi-god, making one tremble 
for the girl. He remembered how he had presumed 
on its continuance, though neither of them had 
dared to make it known to her father, and then 
how it had cooled as she grew older. 

“ I am only a musician, ” he said with mock 
humility. “ My father was a musician before me. ” 

And she, whom he had hitherto contemned in 
his secret heart for the new reserve of what he 
called her “frozen manners,” answered unwisely 
with passionate vehemence, “ I would rather inherit 
distinction of that sort than any amount of land 
or titles.” 


CHAPTER XVL 


“WE CAN NEVER SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN. * 

Zina reproached herself for her impulsiveness when 
Stephen Dewe left her that afternoon, telling her- 
self that she did not wish to be thrown so much 
in his society, and that it was undesirable they 
should find coincidences of thought. At first she 
had felt positive that she should experience the 
same disappointment in this constant association 
with him which he would be sure to feel with her, 
but she was beginning to be less certain and to 
have a fear lest his admiration for her should 
suddenly be re-kindled. 

“ Why should I be afraid of anything now ? I 
have known the worst which life can send me. I 
am a faded woman, as lonely as an Indian widow 
and banned by the opinion of the world,” she said 
to herself. But there were days when she trembled 
a little, and took herself to task for vanity in the 
mere fact of that trembling. 

She was in state of mental discomfort aware of 


“ We can never see each other again* 291 

the artificiality of the position between them, and yet 
unwilling to discuss the question with Mary. A 
sort of instinct prompted her not even to show him 
that which she considered to be incomparably her 
best picture. She hastily stopped him when he 
tried to look at it. “I reserve my best things; 
they are not for everyone, not even for my friends,” 
she said, taxing herself afterwards for affectation 
in the excuse. “We have all of us our pictures 
or our writings in which we tell our secrets, as a 
poet tells his in his ppems, and you tell yours 
in your music — we are never inclined to part with 
them for money.” 

“ That is all very well when people have inde- 
pendent money, or make as much as you do by 
your sketches, but what about the other poor devils 
who are obliged to sell their secrets?” he laughed 
back in reply, as she stooped over a portfolio to 
hide the rush of crimson which suddenly dyed her 
cheeks. 

The same instinct might have warned her how 
unwise had been her policy in begging Mary not 
to let her children come so often to her studio, to 
help her to clean her palette or put away her 
brushes ; the senses of children being far keener 
than those of adults which are blunted with age, 
and the comments which the elder girl had made 
having more than once become awkward. 

Stephen’s hurry to dismiss the little girls might 
have opened her eyes, since the race of children from 
whom anything can be hidden is becoming beautifully 
less, but in spite of all she had gone through she 
was still an idealist and would not admit the possi- 
bility of new evils to herself. 

Mary was not suspicious when she found that 
her girls had been discouraged from making their 
constant visits. Their very glee, their animation, 
their bubbling merriment, as they in their simplicity 


A Waking. 


292 

plied their mother’s friend with tiresome questions, — 
their cheeks dimpling with pleasure as they taxed 
their inventiveness to dress the lay-figure in the 
newest types of fashion — might have been supposed 
to be amusing, had there not been a fear that their 
blunt directness would ferret out secrets unknown 
to the artist herself. 

A sort of languor came over Zina as the days 
grew hotter and she began to look with expectant 
interest for Stephen’s music. She felt a little desolate 
if he did not come, and was reassured when she 
heard his footsteps on the threshold. He began to 
take his ease as a familiar friend, criticising her 
work. It was unconventional, as Mary told her. But 
she put Mary off with a smile which was so innocent 
that the latter felt she might as well reason with 
an unsophisticated child. 

“Is he not my friend ” she asked with that smile, 
“ one of the last links with my old home. Are all 
the friendships to be destroyed because people will 
be artificial ? ” 

One day when she had been suffering with 
headache, and he chatting on as he brought her a 
budget of news from the outer world, keeping her 
“ posted up, ” as they both expressed it, in the latest 
political and social events, her suffering mastered her. 

The work which she had been finishing lately 
had been thoroughly against the grain, and she was 
the first to depreciate it. 

“It is horribly bad,” she said looking at it with 
an expression of disgust, whilst the headache which 
had disguised itself for some time returned with 
fresh virulence — thud — thud, with a sickening sens- 
ation as if hammers were beating on her brain. 

“ There is nothing so silly as to paint, ” she added, 
“without being tremendously in earnest.” 

She put down her brushes, and pressed her hands 
suddenly to her head, “Oh, if the pain would not 


w We can never see each other again." 293 

go on like that — if I could know what it was alto- 
gether to forget.” 

It was an unwise cry, and as he heard it a wild 
joy filled his heart. He was not a practised intriguer 
and the desire to throw off disguises came upon 
him so strongly that it resolved itself in action. There 
was a sound as of rushing water in his ears, as some- 
thing in that pale loveliness which he found it difficult 
to resist prompted him to put his hand on her shoulder 
in a brotherly way, which was almost caressing. 

“ Obey me,” he said, “ and put away that painting — 
you work too often and too much — go away — you are 
nervous and need a change — I understand you better 
now than when I knew you first. I blame myself 
severely for not having understood then that you 
were nervously agonised, with a highly-impression- 
able disposition inherited not only from your father, 
but probably also from your Russian mother — did 
you not once tell me that you believed she was a 
Russian ? The very fact that music makes such an 
immense impression on you proves that you are 
very ” — he had almost said “fin de siecle" but rejected 
the affected expression for “receptive,” — adding 
“much more receptive then the majority of cold- 
blooded Englishwomen. You are nervous now, 
because you are overstrained and need a change 
which you are quite well able to afford — put the 
painting away.” 

It was the first time he had ventured to touch 
her, but she did not resent his touch. 

She asked herself why she should shrink ? — this 
man had been her friend. He sang and his singing 
had eased her of a feeling of tension, it had helped 
her to wrestle with her difficulties. He talked bril- 
liantly and her troubles were dwarfed. How did 
she know that he might not help her with his 
clearer wisdom to make those wise deductions of 
the best to be done under difficult circumstances, 


A Waking . 


294 

in which no one else could help her ? Her conscience 
suggested Mary. But Mary from her very goodness 
was narrow and timorous, praying every night that 
the hosts of darkness might not approach her home ; 
it seemed a curious fact that Mary, of all people in 
the world, owing to her kindness in the past should 
be mixed up at all with a scandal. Mary must have 
known, when she spoke tenderly to her friend, how 
the Professor would have acted ; how he would have 
cast Mrs. Layton off lest she should defile his girls. 
Zina was conscious of a thickening in her throat 
as she remembered how this last asylum might have 
failed her had not Mary been widowed. 

It seemed for the moment to be a relief to have 
some male friend to turn to. 

She did not reason about it, as she gathered up 
the brushes, putting them away obediently in the 
box. On the contrary she felt tempted to tell him 
all. The longing for an ear into which she could 
pour out her story — for some man, old enough to 
be her listener— a man, if possible, with the training 
and experience of a Roman Catholic priest, was 
at times insufferable. But then again she would 
shrink from laying bare her private experiences, 
deeming it mean to tell a tale which could not be 
told without in some way implicating her husband, 
and something whispered to her that Stephen Dewe’s 
was not exactly the ear to which the story of her 
secret struggles should be poured out. Yet she 
sighed, and her voice sounded strangely in her 
throat. A sudden weakness had come upon her, an 
egoism which was unusual. How could she expect 
others to make excuses for her, she argued, when 
her secret was still unknown to any other human 
being than herself? Was it not hard to persevere 
shrouded in this mantle of silence ? 

“ I wish I could tell you, " she said wistfully, still 
j with that impulse to confide in someone who did 


u We ca?i never see each other again." 295 

not know her intimately enough to be able to 
accuse her of speaking disparagingly of her hus- 
band — not a matter-of-fact woman who would be 
likely to remind her that she had been too young 
and too confiding in not making more minute 
inquiries before her marriage — but a man who could 
not question her too much about all the circum- 
stances. Yet her sensitive conscience kept her 
tongue-tied, reproaching her already with the weak- 
ness it would be wiser to subdue. 

And once more she reasoned with herself. If only 
there had been anyone to whom she could open 
her heart instead of shrinking as she did from Mary’s 
prim conventionality — anyone who would under- 
stand her sensation of complete dissatisfaction with 
herself as well as with the other persons implicated, 
and who would somehow help her out of it, perhaps 
enabling her to make a new beginning ! She did not 
undervalue Mary’s love, but Mary, as she had 
before acknowledged to herself, was too much of a 
housewife and too little of a dreamer, occupied 
for the sake of her children with the material 
necessities of life, to be a confidante in matters of 
this sort, or to enter at all earnestly into her friend’s 
sense of paralysis in grappling with things condoned 
by the majority. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION, 

The struggle was so great that it was as if two 
parallel lines of thought, in each of which there 
seemed to be no deflection, were present to her 
mind ; she was not aware that she was inclining to 
one side or the other. 

“ Confide in me — once for all — I implore you, ” 
he said, in tones hoarse with emotion, and turning 
deadly white as the suggestion of trouble in her 
face was reflected in his own as in a mirror ; “ there 
is no one in all the world who is so ready to lay 
down his life to help you.” 

But the lines of thought in her mind were no 
longer parallel. She shrank from him visibly. The 
de profundis cry had roused her to a sense of her 
present danger. 

He waited anxiously for her answer. But there 
was no movement of her mobile lips; her hands 
were still pressed together as she sat staring at him 
evidently incapable of reply, and dreading the ghosts 


The Valley of Humiliation. 297 

of the future just as she had been hoping to slay 
the ghosts of the past. She was hard on herself at 
that moment, ruthlessly cruel to her own weakness, 
accusing herself of putting herself blindly and wick- 
edly in the power of a man whose love was not 
yet dead for her. If such a horrible thing existed 
as any answering feeling on her part, it might 
account for the tumult just then raging within her— a 
tumult which affected her bodily health while she 
had been trying to keep up the appearance of calmness. 

“ Surely,” he continued in that strange hoarse 
voice, “ there should be no such thing as feeling 
wretched when we are near each other. Whatever 
may have happened you have the greater part of your 
life before you. You think you have lived , but I 
tell you that you have not; you have only vegetated, or 
suffered, while the healthy joy of life should be yours.” 

His speech terrified her with its sudden vehe- 
mence; she looked at him strangely. She thought 
she had given away all the love she possessed, but 
was it possible that from the dead branches lopped 
down to the roots, there could spring fresh shoots, 
hardier than those which had been destroyed? A 
strange terror, such as had been more than once 
subtly communicated to her by the music, was 
taking possession of her again, as if some black 
shadow with features which she could not see were 
crouching behind the visible tempter. She tried to 
speak, but her lips were dry and stiff. High as 
her spirit was he was succeeding in humiliating her, 
for a fear for which she despised herself was upon 
her. Such a situation had always seemed to her to 
be simple, and she had despised those other women 
who could not release themselves from it calmly 
and quietly and at once. But for the first time since 
she had parted with George Layton and thrown 
herself alone on the tender mercies of the world, 
she felt her self-control deserting her. 


298 


A Waking . 


A voice whispered in her ears, " You are not 
bound to abide by your bitter bargain. Your husband 
deceived you, and was united by all the ties of honour 
and affection to another creature, however wretched, 
before he met you. The tie which he formed with 
you was hollow and unreal. Why do you shut your 
eyes to the happiness which may be left? What 
have you to lose — you, whose name is already 
blackened in the estimation of the world. You have 
been broken-hearted and wretched, and you are 
offered a refuge. It is true that you love everything 
which is beautiful and enjoyable— the blooming 
flowers, the sound of music — and do not like drudg- 
ing work. Why banish yourself into exile ? You 
have only one life; why sacrifice it for a delusion?” 

Then she heard Dewe’s voice with its passion- 
ate appeal. “Do not punish me for ever for one 
foolish mistake. I wronged you once, I mistook you, 
but fate has thrown us together again.” 

And for a moment she allowed herself to think 
— how would it have been supposing he had indeed 
become intimately related with herself — a part of 
her life ? If she — and she began to picture to her- 
self how everything might have been well if her 
father had not intervened between them. And then, 
mercifully, her recollection came to her assistance, 
and her resentment burst forth, her woman’s cour- 
age rising above that of the man’s, and shaming him. 

“ There is no such thing as fate being too strong 
for anyone,” she said, and then her voice suddenly 
burst into desperate sobbing. “ Have you altogether 
buried the horrible thoughts you once had of me?” 
she asked, “ when you tortured your imagination, 
thinking strange things about me, and when you 
drove me almost mad and left me in that condition 
of madness. It spoilt my life ! * 

He had grown pale ; and hollows were in his 
cheeks which she had never seen before, as she 


The Valley of Humiliation. 299 

continued, scarcely able to control the trembling 
of her lips, or properly shape the words. 

“ Oh, I am older now, and I understand perfectly 
that you, who had only your music, could not be 
expected to know anything about psychology or 
pathology. Long words are they not? ” she added with 
a mocking laugh. And then more gravely, “ I pity you 
in the past as much as I pity myself. For I know what 
you thought of me — thought of me when I was de- 
lirious, and in my weakness and delirium accused 
myself of monstrosities. Could I help being a woman — 
weak and worn-out with all I had gone through? — 
women are said to be inconsequent, illogical, fan- 
ciful ! I have never allowed these imputations on 
my sex and do not allow them now. But there are 
times when bodily sickness prostrates women more 
than men— ^ times when those who are stronger should 
stand by us — when — ” 

“For pity’s sake, sav no more.” He was at her 
feet. Never had he felt tht* dross in his nature, the 
shame of self which checked his utterance — as at 
a moment like this. 

It was too late, the spell was broken. 

“You tried to analyse my character just now,” 
she said, looking at him with a new impulse of 
disdain, “and now let me try to analyse you. You 
are an artist, without much inherent energy, 
and your power of shaping your own life vanishes 
into viewless air, like the music which you can 
extemporize but never originate. Your admiration 
of me, ever since I have known you, has been only 
artistic. But for you, ” she continued with a break 
in her voice, “ my whole life might have been 
different from what it is. You were the first to cause 
me bitter disappointment, and to make me lose 
my faith in the ideal. It was not your fault that 
when you left me it was not in you to comprehend 
all that you had broken in me, and how the terriW* 


3oo 


A Waking 


part would be for me to live — death seldom seems 
very hard to the despairing young who have scarcely 
tightened their grasp on life — but to live on, 
disenchanted, that was harder ! And now you come 
to me — the devil prompting you — ” 

Once more she could not complete her sentence. 
She tried to speak, but the effort was useless, 
resolving itself in no syllable. Her mental strength 
was failing her, but her spiritual force became 
dominant. She would prove to herself that she had 
will-power, knowing that the situation must not be 
dallied with, but put an end to at once. So that 
when he cast himself at her feet, telling her that 
he had always meant to come back, that he had 
never imagined she would forget him, she said with 
a supreme effort. “The deadly nightshade grows 
close to such forget-me-nots ; and even forgiveness in 
my case does not imply what you call love.” 

To argue might be to succumb; she felt it, and 
had recourse to gesture to indicate her wish to be 
alone. 

He admired the magnificence of her outlines, the 
tragic dignity of the pose of her figure, when she 
waved him back and added, “You should have 
respected me as you would have respected a clois- 
tered nun — or a widow — bound by sacred vows 
to perpetual widowhood! If you had not spoken 
like this you might have been my friend — I might 
have forgiven you though I could never have for- 
gotten. I had overlooked the past, indeed I trusted 
you as a helper — a solacer of my solitude; but now 
all that is impossible, and I know how mad I 
have been to think that it could be possible. O 
heaven, the pity of it! If I had thought for 
one moment that I could be misconstrued — that 
you could not come to me as a brother comes — that 
the familiarity which I had called friendship — the 
music which had helped me over the difficult 


The Valley of Humiliation. 301 

places — would give rise to misconception— to thoughts 
like these — thoughts to be ashamed of— to lower 
one to the dust! Go, it is your fault — it was not 
in you to understand friendship — you have taught 
me that there is no such thing as that purer atmo- 
sphere which I in my imbecility — poor fool that I was 
— dreamt of. Go, we can never see each other again. ” 

He would willingly have protracted the interview, 
but he saw no means of doing it. It was as if the 
loftiness of her spirit overpowered him, and he 
flinched before it. 

“ Go ! ” she repeated, obeying the finer impulses 
which so often serve women better than their colder 
and more calculating reflections ; “ now that I know 
you feel in this way — the very fact of your feeling 
so prevents us from being friends. Why should you 
linger here? The sooner we part the better. I shall 
never regret it — go ! ” she repeated, ashamed of the 
growing agitation in her voice; “we may meet in 
the next world — if there is an after-life — but never 
again in this. ” 

And he left her, obeying a parting look which 
would cause her always to be sublime to his memory. 
He had been a sybarite and a dreamer all his life, 
but in that moment he felt that he should never 
regret not having sacrificed her good name to his 
egotism and selfishness. 

In another instant she was alone, but stood 
rooted to the spot. The crisis of danger and mortal 
agony was past, but the recollection of it was like 
a girder of iron about her heart. “ How intoxicating, 
how deceiving the dead sleep of conscience, but 
ah, the waking — the waking!” she thought to herself. 
“Oh, the hard and bitter realities of life!” 

Saved as if by the merest accident, escaping by 
the skin of her teeth from the cruel tender mercies 
of this last so-called friend, , who had abused the 
cordial familiarity to which she, in her forlorn 


302 


A Waking . 


solitude, had thought to admit him, she hated hersell 
for the weakness which had so nearly overcome 
her. There was a throbbing pain at her heart. Would 
it break down altogether, and end in physical disease ? 
The passionate sobbing had been tearless, and even 
now she was denied the bodily relief of tears. She 
opened one of the windows and let the cold air 
blow on her, as if to help her to think. And then 
she thought of the picture which for the last few 
weeks had been resting against the wall, with a 
piece of brocade thrown over it to keep it from 
vulgar eyes. 

She remembered how she had not been able to 
show it to Stephen Dewe because she felt that she 
had not merely painted the portrait of a man ; how 
it had roused her from her state of desolation and 
stupefaction, and how latterly she had been trying to 
persuade herself that this feeling was superstitious. 

She took it up tenderly and put it on the easel, 
feeling more sure than ever that she could never 
exhibit it. Possibly it had a message for her! Was 
it true, as she had heard Mary’s friends argue, that 
no one could speak sincerely of duty without im- 
plying his trust in some unseen Power, strong 
enough to infuse strength into the will of man? 

She had stoutly denied the proposition, but were 
not the old ethical conceptions everywhere falling 
into discredit? Were not the very data on which 
right and wrong rested called into question? It 
was not possible for her to ignore the reality and 
intensity of the present crisis in morality; and in 
her mood of self-abhorrence the dicta of science 
seemed no longer capable of being the sole guides 
for educated man. 

Her feet, which were not patient, had now 
reached the bottom of the valley of humiliation — 
there were no fresh depths for her to traverse. 
Now at least she could be poor in spirit, thinking 


303 


The Valley of Humiliation. 

as she hoped for mercy, more mercifully of a tem- 
perament which was so different from her own— 
and more pitifully of temptations of which she had 
hitherto had no comprehension. She longed for 
the love which pardons offences, but she longed 
for purity also, since a love which allowed itself to 
be dragged in the mire could not help to raise a 
fellow-mortal. She yearned for something which 
could help tottering footsteps, her own as well as 
her husband’s, and cried through the darkness. 

“ God, if thou dost exist, deign to shew thyself to 
me — let the vision become once more real, without 
fancies deceiving me! I have loved Thy creatures 
desperately and madly, with a love which should 
have been given to Thee. I am rightly and justly 
punished, and now with the dregs of life, with 
affections squandered on nothingness, I come to 
offer myself to Thee. How do I dare to do it?” 

And then came the merciful relief of tears and 
she wept as only such women weep, with teeth 
set, and mouth compressed, struggling against her 
weakness. 

She was worn-out, pale to the lips, and evi- 
dently exhausted, when she appeared at the frugal 
breakfast-table on the following morning; yet with 
a strength which had never failed her she forced 
herself to seem collected, and no one asked her 
any questions. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


GEORGE LAYTON VISITS THE STUDIO. 

George Layton had never been the same man 
since Zina left him. 

At first he had tried to reason with himself in spite 
of the somewhat incoherent letter which she had 
left pinned to the dressing-table, and perhaps on 
the very account of its incoherency, that his wife 
would think the better of it and come back soon. 
All women, as he said to himself, protested more 
than they meant, and perhaps when sufficient pres- 
sure was put on her she would retract. The worst 
which could happen would be a silly visit to London, 
or to some of her friends in the country. He thought 
instantly of the Carruthers and remembered that 
Mary Carruthers was a woman to be trusted. And 
so he gave out that a lady had sent for Mrs. . Lay- 
ton, one of her former friends, who was seriously ill, 
and that she had asked him to make her apologies for 
her, feeling in his secret heart that as soon as the other 
women cleared out the better he would be pleased. 


George Layton visits the Studio. 305 

It rained all the day, but she did not return at 
nightfall, nor on the next day. When her maid told 
him that no tidings had been received from her, and 
that reports were about in the village, he answered, 
with a wild gesture which made the girl recoil as 
if he had aimed a blow at her, “ It is not true, ” and 
then with an effort he recovered himself — so strong 
was his desire to keep up appearances. He walked 
more than once into Zina’s rooms, remembering how 
they had laughed together in happier days at the 
hangings with the antique and abandoned forms 
which nature had done her best to obliterate and 
which were revived again in these curious Japanese 
imaginings, and looked with loathing at the 
dressing-table on which he had found the letter 
announcing her resolve. He remembered how he had 
taken special pains in choosing that article of furni- 
ture. It was delicately carved and inlaid with small 
china tiles, hand-painted and executed from the 
designs of Walter Crane. A number of little drawers 
had contained her costly trinkets, and he found on 
looking through them that not a trinket he had 
given her had been taken. It was more mortifying 
still to discover on examining her jewel-box, the 
key of which had been carefully enclosed in the 
letter, that all the costly presents he had showered 
on her — the diamonds, pearls, and sapphires— had 
been left behind. 

He took up a necklace of opals — her favourite 
amongst the ornaments — and gazed at the varying 
colours of the stones ; he had seen it last with the 
milky azure, pink, and violet gleaming on the 
shining satin of her neck and shoulders. But he had 
known that she had never cared for jewels, and 
that she had always resented the way in which he 
had forced her to display her charms for the benefit 
of other men who might gaze on them and appreci- 
ate them. He had looked upon her as a possession 


3°6 


A Waking . 


to be his to his dying day. Had he not paid the 
full price for his right of property in her, and had 
it not added to his satisfaction that other people 
should think highly of what he had paid for? But 
he knew as he looked at the jewels that he had 
never been able to tarnish her, and that something 
intangible, immaterial, had escaped him even in the 
days when he had thought to bind her. 

He took the letter out of his pocket and read it 
again, perceiving for the first time a hurried post- 
script like a rider to the document, which increased 
his anguish and his anger. 

“ Do not be afraid that anyone will blame you. I 
take all the blame for what has happened on myself. 
It is my intention to resume my maiden name.” 

For the first time he reasoned that there were 
ante-chambers in her nature, locked and barred to 
men like him, depths which his plummet line could 
never penetrate. From the beginning she had never 
wearied him with aimless chatter, and though his 
own careless hands had been ready to thrust her 
forth in paths which might have lowered a weaker 
and less modest nature, there had been no parade 
or flourish of trumpets in the display of her attrac- 
tions. And even when she had made her last fatal 
discovery, and when she had had courage to reproach 
him to his face, she was not a woman to wear him 
out w T ith perpetual complaining. 

Had such scenes been repeated he might have 
learnt to hate her, but it was only that once. She 
had spared him, taking the burden on her young 
shoulders, and had perceived with admirable com- 
mon-sense that nothing could be gained by mutual 
recrimination. She had said her say and she had 
left him. He had not seen much of her lately ; 
he did not admit to himself at once that this was 
partly his own fault, and that from his youth 
upwards there had been times when he had pre- 


George Layton visits the Studio . 


307 


ferred the company of men whose subtle, moral 
taint had contaminated everything. He had called 
his wife a prude; he had set himself to lower her 
ideal. In vain! 

He had told himself that he hated women of the 
Lady Byron type, and that if poor Byron had married 
his early love his whole life might have been differ- 
ent. But whether he was justified in that opinion 
or not, he could not pretend that Zina had had 
anything in common with that feminine type. 

There had been nothing irritating in his wife’s 
parade of goodness, and she had never before 
attempted to cast imputations upon him, — imputations 
which might bring out all that was reprobate in 
his nature. On the contrary she had been sympathetic 
and tolerant and never given to sermonising. 

“Empty and dark is the house without her, 

Empty and dark through the open door.” 

He did not know why it was that this woman 
had so slipped into her place that he could not do 
without her. He wondered that he could not ; for 
it would only have been in accordance with his 
former life if, in the rage of a man baffled by fate, 
he had been able to curse her and forget her. 

For he had ever been governed by impulse, and 
had too often “ ceased to care,” and did not consider 
himself responsible for the wasted fires, and the 
impulses of youth which had so frequently died out. 
That poor woman who was dead, for instance, had 
been only a pretty empty-headed doll, who had 
not understood that constancy was not possible to 
him, and of whom he had wearied when satiated 
by possession. He had intended to “do handsomely 
by her ”, if she had not been so insane as to reject 
his offers of money and he tried to persuade him- 
self, even now, that his conduct towards her had 
not been incompatible with the code of honour 


308 A Waking . 

practised by gentlemen. But it was different with 
his wife. 

Not many months had passed and yet her pres- 
ence had become as natural to him as the trees 
and the flowers, the pictures on the walls, and the 
birds which sang in his garden. 

“ I will have patience, ” he said, “ and keep up a 
dignified silence, and she will return to me penitent. 
She will not be able to support herself, and will 
miss the luxuries and all the comforts with which 
I surrounded her. Beautiful women are capricious 
and whimsical, but as they grow older they learn 
to adapt themselves to other people. And mean- 
while we must avoid a scandal.” 

So as the time went on, and the house was emptying 
of guests, one story after another came glibly to his 
lips. But scandal was too much for him. It stole 
into his house decked in sable robes, and seated 
itself determinately beside his hearth. He tried his 
best to snap his fingers at it, and to avoid the 
annoying scenes, the indefinite innuendoes, all made 
at the expense of the woman whom his sense of 
justice prompted him to protect. The better part 
of his nature made him feel that a cut direct to 
himself would have been as nothing, a mere flea- 
bite, compared to his agony of vexation about his 
\vife. And yet infuriated as he was at the remarks 
which were made at her expense, he was only the 
more inclined to blame the absurdity by which she 
had brought them on herself — choosing to stand like 
St. Simeon Stylites on her self-chosen pillar. His 
friends, on their part, somewhat naturally com- 
plained that it was impossible for them to tell what 
attitude to take in the matter. 

Eva Capem was having recourse to compromise 
as usual ; Eva angry, nervously fidgetty, and wishing 
with all her heart that she could have managed to 
get away before there was time for the storm to 


George Layton visits the Studio. 309 

break, tried to say boldly that nothing was the 
matter. Some of the women were shocked, others 
had a perplexed air; some laughed in their own 
bedrooms and said that these sort of things always 
happened to those of their sex who pretended to 
keep up a higher standard than their neighbours. 
Others were a little pale and agitated, but all were 
ready with their opinions and surmises, whilst in all 
the bedrooms was the scurry of hurried packing up. 

But nearly all in turns came to Mrs. Capern. 
“ Dear Mrs. Capern, can you explain ? What does 
it all mean? Such things as this really don’t happen 
in our world.” 

“ You are right — cela ne fait pas — Mrs. Layton is 
only a little unconventional,” said Eva speaking in 
spite of herself in a voice which was a trifle unsteady. 

Here was a roof which she had wanted to feel 
sure of having over her head always in an emer- 
gency, and her wits must not desert her. What 
was the use ? she asked herself, when all was said. 
Why should she mind being thrown off her guard 
and tempted to satisfy these women’s easily-stirred 
curiosity ? After all she knew little herself, but there 
was an eager glitter in the eyes of some of her 
questioners which for once almost sickened her, and 
she found it hard to answer them with suavity. 
When she made the best of it they only shrugged 
their shoulders, reminding themselves that Mrs. Capern 
was Zina Layton’s friend, and that friends were 
always expected to say that sort of thing, however 
bad they might know the case to be. After a time 
Eva’s prudence relaxed and she could not resist 
making little confidences in private and these con- 
fidences were more or less to her friend’s discredit. 
She intended to say nothing unkind on the score 
of discreet friendship; but there were times when 
supposed secrets leaked from her dainty lips, as 
they do from the lips of the majority of women. 


3io 


A Waking. 


Otherwise, to do her justice, she laughed and talked 
her brightest, after Zina’s sudden departure, as a 
means of diverting suspicion. It was long since she 
had ceased to hope that the case would admit of 
arbitration, or that George Layton would allow her 
to speak to him about it. But this sullen mood of 
his in which everyone felt it awkward to be expect- 
ed to show just the right amount of sympathy 
which might not involve condolence, only made the 
tongues wag more loudly as the packing went on 
in the different rooms. 

A woman who looked like a picture as she sat 
at the head of the table and outshone her various 
guests, was not likely to meet with much mercy at 
the hands of her own sex. Sometimes, they re- 
membered, she would sit at the table and look at 
them as if she did not see them, or saw beyond 
them, and for that they did not forgive her. They 
were antipathetic to her, and she had not hesitated 
to let them see it; a woman who could only make 
herself thoroughly agreeable to what fitted into her 
own temperament was not likely to be popular. 
And so, from the very house in which they had been 
entertained, various versions of the story filtered, 
maddening Layton when he heard of them. No one 
had any pity on Zina. What could you expect? 
they asked. She had been brought up as an artist, 
and it was almost always the same miserable story 
with these sort of people who had to work in a 
public way to get their own bread. “Bred in the 
bone, you see ! ” they quoted with solemn shakes 
of the head, which horrified Mrs. Grundy and was 
intended to horrify her — “there were a good many 
queer stories afloat about the girl and her father before 
the marriage, and as to the mother — the mere riff- 
raff of the streets — he had her educated, you know ; 
but think of the influence! What could you ex- 
pect?” asked the gossips, dropping their voices as 


George Layton visits the Studio . 3 1 1 

they discoursed with scraps of learning about heredity. 

When George Layton heard of it he compared 
his friends of the other sex to a lot of “ cats ” in his dis- 
gust; but cats or not, their claws did not scratch 
him; they were wrapped in velvet whenever they 
came near him. He knew that his wife had offended 
them, that she had paid them the ill compliment of 
evidently not enjoying herself when she was in 
their company, and that she had treated them in 
the same high-handed way in which she had treated 
himself, leaving him because she would not give 
in to the empty falsehoods required to keep up 
appearances. It was unheard of and not of this 
world. And yet he was generous enough to recognise 
that she was sacrificing herself to take on her own 
shoulders the duties which he had left undone. A 
woman touched so easily by the pain of others and 
moved to such self-denying charity — a case like this 
had never hitherto come to his cognisance! 

He tried not to think too much about it, as he 
waited for the progress of time which was to waft 
her back to his feet like seaweed or driftwood 
cast up by the waves. 

He persuaded himself that it could only be a 
question of time, that he would rule this woman as 
he had ruled others of her sex. For a little while 
indeed, after he had first met her, he had known 
regret, sorrow for wasted opportunities and for 
lost ideals. But then he had found the conquest 
comparatively easy, and it soon became natural to 
him, in accordance with the whole method of his 
life, to determine to bend her will to his, instead 
of raising himself up to her. There had been days 
indeed when he had even taken himself to task for 
the mad impulse which determined him to marry 
this woman. But now that he continued to miss he r 
and to long for her coming back, a sort of sham e 
came over him, and the immense self-esteem whic^ 


312 


A Waking. 


he had managed to hide under a nonchalant manner, 
was for the first time shaken. Still he argued that 
had he told her the story himself, instead of allowing 
her to find it out and so get the first word, he 
could have explained it in such a way as to vindicate 
his honour. Men like himself could plead the intensity 
of their vitality, and their warmth of passion which 
should cover a multitude of minor sins. Still he 
scarcely wished to see the look again which he could 
never forget in those great agonised dark-lashed 
eyes of hers — eyes which condemned and which 
searched him through and through, lit from the. 
fire of anguish which flamed in her soul. Women 
took a little while to get over scenes like that , and 
possibly absence for a short time might not be 
unbeneficial ; meanwhile he could not sleep, and he 
had recourse first of all to increased quantities of 
alcohol and next to doses of opium. 

He had tried to comfort himself when first Zina 
left him by imagining that he should be more at 
ease, and independent — not being the first man who 
had made the experiment of matrimony and after- 
wards suspected that bachelor comfort might be best 
after all. But though at first when they were alone 
together, he had been conscious of a curious sort 
of relief when he could lock the door of his private 
apartments and feel that the demands made upon 
him by a high-pressure life were withdrawn for a 
time ; though his wife’s ideals were so different 
from the Rochefoucauldian maxims he had adopted 
for himself, there were days when he felt now that 
it would have been infinitely better to have been 
confronted by her scorn, rather than left to himself. 
He did not like to face his friends in London, and 
the zest for travelling seemed to have been blunted ; 
but the loneliness of his country life was hard on 
him. He began to be more and more nervous. 

The continual suffering which he had tried to 


George Layton visits the Studio. 313 

defy, the aching sense of humiliation, the desire 
which he could not satisfy, and the wild hope 
tearing at his heart that some time or other his 
wife would come back as quietly as she had gone, 
were wearing him day by day. He had not the 
panacea of work, as Zina had, to help him to defy 
his grief ; the opium was telling on him and he was 
beginning to succumb. Even the closing of a -door 
echoed with a muffled sound, reverberating through 
the desolate house to a fancy which had never 
before been distempered. 

He was ill, and needed a doctor, but there was 
no one to nurse him, and he began to wonder how 
he should endure his lonely life — how get through 
that arid, dry period of uninteresting middle age, 
which is the dullest and dreariest period of exist- 
ence. He had always pitied those poor wretches 
who were hampered by middle-age cares, and crushed 
by the narrowing influences of everyday worries 
or straitened circumstances, but he pitied them no 
longer. To have other people to care for would be 
something — it might mitigate the boredom. And then 
at last the news reached him that his wife had attained 
success, but that in this success she was braving 
him, exhibiting pictures under her maiden name. 
She had not even taken the precaution to hide her 
whereabouts from him. It was more than human 
nature could stand. He had not outraged her in 
any way or lost his legal rights; the utmost he 
had done was to force things on her contrary to 
her tastes, but he had never lifted his hand against 
her, never been cruel to her in any way, and the 
law was on his side ; he would oblige her to return 
to him. 

His desire to regain possession of her was sud- 
denly inflamed by the fact that other men had 
learnt to notice and appreciate her. “She is play- 
ing the fool with me,” he said, laughing contemp- 


3M 


A Waking . 


tuously at the idea that he should have any diffi- 
culty in his quest, when one afternoon he found 
his way to her studio, his features peaked and 
almost haggard, the external crust of the bodily 
frame wearing out with the internal conflict of the 
last few months. 

It was a nervous impulse which brought him to 
the -studio, for he knew that no good could come 
from recrimination, and he had never had any inten- 
tion of resorting to force. 

The profound dejection out of which he could 
not reason himself was increased by the conviction 
that Zina would probably not deny herself when he 
insisted on seeing her, but that every interview 
with her would be a new disappointment, only 
bringing fresh suffering on both of them. For his 
wife was not a woman like the generality of women, 
so weak as to be for ever yielding to the touch 
of circumstances. It was a bitter knowledge to him 
that she had been in the right, and that the tragedy 
might have been averted which still threatened to 
spoil two lives if he had been a little less reckless 
of consequences. He did not understand that it was 
the egotism which made him see everything through 
coloured glasses of his own which had helped him 
to throw off galling recollections as if they had been 
old clothes. He shifted the blame on the wrong 
shoulders and with a sort of contemptuous self- 
mockery, was ready to cry, with his next breath, 
“ What a demon the woman is ! — Why could she 
not let bygones be bygones?” 

He was expecting to find her in the room alone, 
as he reeled into it like a drunken man, worn and 
haggard-looking with a curious glitter in his eye. 
And then he stood arrested, drawing a deep breath. 
For nobody was in the room, though he had thought 
to surprise his wife, and had been told that she 
would always be in at this hour. He took in at one 


George Layton visits the Studio. 3 1 5 

glance the efforts she had made to beautify the 
place at small expense, the ferns, the fan palms, 
the plaster casts, the wet canvases, and the frescoes 
she had roughly drawn on an expanse of stuccoed 
wall; and then his eyes were attracted by the 
picture on the easel. 

It was a subject to which he had more than once 
expressed an aversion, and the last which he sup- 
posed she would attempt, when she had to devote 
herself to an art by which she had to get her liv- 
ing. It was large in size and very carefully painted. 
The face was emaciated, but it was not the face 
of an ascetic, weary with the conflict of the flesh 
and the spirit. It was the realisation of all that 
was highest. Perfect purity shone from it, and there 
was such a concentration of feeling, such an inten- 
sity of yearning in the eyes, that he found it 
impossible to escape from them in any part of the 
room. “I will sit down,” he thought to himself, 
“ and wait till she comes back. From all that they 
have told me she cannot be long now.” 

He sat down and lit a cigar; he hoped it would 
steady his nerves. Then he threw the cigar down 
and began to walk with restless step up and down 
the studio. Finally he drew a small silver flask, 
cunningly fashioned, out of his pocket, and poured 
out a few drops from it, hoping it might rekindle 
his energy and confidence. But the native manhood on 
which he prided himself seemed to have gone out 
of him. What could possess him that he was unable 
to turn his eyes from the canvas, or — to put it in 
another way — that the eyes of the picture seemed to 
follow him as if they had independent existence 
and would not let him rest ? He took out a hand- 
kerchief and began to mop his forehead, and hummed 
a merry tune from one of the last burlesques. Still 
he seemed to be impelled as by some irresistible 
fascination to glance again at the easel. The eyes 


A Waking. 


316 

of the picture were looking at him in such a way 
that he felt it more impossible to escape from them 
than ever. He was uncomfortably aware of a con- 
centration of expression in them almost amounting 
to magnetism, which seemed to force him to meet 
them whether he would or not. 


CHAPTER XIX* 


FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE. 

There seemed to be an easy means of getting 
rid of the uncomfortable idea, by looking at the 
other sketches which his wife would be preparing 
for exhibitions. He had heard much of these sket- 
ches as of vivid recollections of that Nature which 
was always true and living to Zina, and of which, 
even when they had been together in Switzerland, 
she had tried to seize the impression. He made up 
his mind that, under the circumstances, he could 
not do better than amuse himself with these until 
the artist returned. 

But Zina had lately cared little about these 
sketches; she had not painted them with the poign- 
ant emotions which threatened to rend and tear 
her; she had not been deprived of sleep by thinking 
of them. Since she had sent Stephen Dewe away 
these smaller pictures had become of less and less 
consequence to her. It mattered little to her if they 
were skyed or if they were abused by the critics ; they 


3i8 


A Waking . 


were only ideas which she had to get rid of in order 
to devote herself to the grander work which the critics 
would never see. And she had latterly fallen into the 
habit of putting them all away that they might not inter- 
fere with the effect of that larger work on the 
easel. For, once again, she had been concentrating 
all her efforts on the subject which haunted her, 
once again the little miseries of life had ceased to 
torment; she was lost in her work, she saw her 
subject as if the veil had been again removed from 
her eyes. During the last few days when she had 
been putting fresh touches to it she had seemed to 
see everything else through a mist, so intent was 
she on the picture. 

It seemed to her dry and cold, now that it was 
so nearly completed, compared with the idea which 
had been so clearly in her head. Other things 
which she had despised had been more or less pre- 
tentious; but this was not. It was living, breath- 
ing; the lips seemed to open to speak; its purity 
was rebuking and yet it was not sentimental — or 
effeminate. The ewig weibliche was another 
thing; George Layton did not undervalue it though 
he had so often been ready to lower womanhood 
and fling its glory in the dust. But this was manly, 
and more than manly; its manliness and its purity 
seemed to reproach him ; he began to feel as if he 
could not breathe in its presence. Pshaw ! it was 
not possible that this could be the work of his 
wife. Her imagination, as he remembered, always 
ran away with her ; she could always picture extra- 
ordinary things. And yet she was one whose study 
of technique might be improved, and she would 
never have pretended in former days to think she 
could reach the highest walks of art, though she 
conceived her subjects in an original manner, paint- 
ting as if she felt them. 

This could scarcely be her work! Yet he felt 


For letter , for worse . 


3i9 


that if it was, it was a revelation of what she had 
suffered. In the picture before him it was as if 
the hidden depths of her nature were revealed; 
her rebellion against the world, her despair, her 
prostration. She had not wanted anything that was 
hackneyed, sophisticated, or untrue, but something 
which was real, which had permeated her whole 
being with the sense of its reality, though others 
might call it absurd. There was pain in the picture, 
but not pain that was painted physiologically, pain 
which the artist must have felt herself, and which 
somehow, very oddly, he began to feel. He did not 
know why, it was probably merely a sensation. 
He did not wish to probe into the hidden depths 
of his own consciousness; all such maudlin self- 
analysis had been abandoned long ago and he 
resented sentimental talk about the beauty of suffer- 
ing, just as he resented that foolish mediaeval 
worship of pain. And yet in the presence of this 
picture it was certain that he suffered. He took the flask 
again from his pocket hoping to steady his nerves. 

He could see nothing but mawkish sentiment in 
the Raphaels, and had no fancy for the colouring 
of Titian. He condemned the flesh painting of 
Rubens as coarse, and turned from the comfortable- 
looking Madonnas of Murillo, condemning the 
monotony in such pictures as wearisome and unreal. 
Yet all were immeasurably superior in technique 
and handling to the picture before him, which he 
tried to condemn facetiously as the mere daub of 
an inexperienced woman. Why therefore should it 
trouble him? Why should this inexperienced woman 
have been able to put all recollection of these other 
tremendous artists out of her memory ? She had not 
all the secrets which they had for rendering the 
texture of the skin or the colouring of the gar- 
ments. And yet somehow there was a reality about 
those threadbare garments, worn and old with the 


32o 


A Waking. 


action of the weather. The whole experience was 
not canny; it was scarcely human. It made him 
more and more nervous, and it gave him odd ideas 
which no sacred picture had ever given him before. 

The events of his past life were striking him in 
a new light, as if Powers which he had hitherto 
ignored or considered as purely benevolent and 
indulgent to the errors of creatures who were 
mortal, might possibly prove to be awful, condem- 
natory, non-exonerating. 

That any such Power should be interested in his 
character seemed to him a thing ridiculous. He got 
up again and paced the room. It was positively 
absurd that new and bothering thoughts about the 
problem of existence should suddenly force them- 
selves upon him. All these things, as he repeated 
wfo himself, were purely conventional — the world 
might make its own laws — conventions for the 
good of the race to be broken in exceptional cases. 
Possibly if he had his life to go over again a few 
of the cases in which he had been a law into himself 
might have been altered, but, after all was said, 
these exceptions could be put on one side as things 
that were regrettable and could be excused on the 
score of youth. It was the height of absurdity that 
such little slips should be brought back to his 
memory, recurring to him again and again like the 
tiresome iteration of a tinkling bell. 

He had attempted to silence the tinkling by that 
effort of will which he had exercised all his life — 
a masterful effort to put away from him anything 
uncomfortable. But the tiresome iteration was becom- 
ing a sort of clamouring which dedeafened the com- 
mon-sense on which he had hitherto prided himself. 
It even seemed to be taking an independent voice 
as if determined to blurt out things in the silence of 
the studio. He felt inclined to shout back at it, to 
terrify it into disappearing, and to inform it with 


For better, for worse . 


321 


a mocking laugh that all such things were bogies, 
fit only to scare women and children. Then he was 
astonished to find himself arguing. Was it his fault 
if he had been born with a certain temperament, 
for which the formation of his skull and the con- 
volutions of his brain could alone be held respons- 
ible ? He reminded himself that character was 
destiny as he sat in the darkness of the room, 
dropping his face upon his hands, and trying in 
vain to emerge from this labyrinth of thought. 

Then he had an odd sensation as if he were 
attempting to hoodwink himself, and he made one 
more attempt to be master of the situation, telling 
himself that it was downright droll, this new con- 
ceit for reviewing, as if he were a drowning man, 
the various episodes of his past life ; when, if it 
were all to come over again, everything sinister 
would probably be enacted in precisely the same 
fashion — he probably would not be able to help it. 

That he should feel as he did at present was a 
proof that he had been shaken by all the troubles 
which had happened to him, yet it was childish to 
allow these speculations to engross him. 

He got up once more and walked deliberately 
towards the picture, with the sudden intention of 
turning it round so that the eyes should no longer 
confront him. As he began to move it, a little 
piece of sketching canvas which had been carefully 
concealed behind it fluttered down and fell on the 
floor. He took it up and examined it. It was 
merely a rough sketch — done with few touches in 
the French impressionist style — a pillow — a part of 
a bed, and then — two faces. One was the face of 
a dying woman with pleading eyes, sunken in their 
orbits and seeming to gaze from a distance — with 
dishevelled golden hair spread over the pillow, and 
shadowy hands stretched out as if to emphasize her 
piteous request, whilst crawling on the bed by her 


322 


A Waking. 


side and resting its dimpled cheek on its mothers 
thin one was a little innocent fair-haired child. He 
threw the sketch down as if it had stung him, and 
swore aloud. Was it some overmastering instinct 
which had compelled his wife to record this haunting 
memory, so truthful in the likeness, so harrowing 
in the expression of the yearning eyes and then to 
hide it away where no one would ever find it 
behind the tender reproachful face of the Christ? 
He could not tell — he could not think, but queer 
ideas of independent existence, which seemed to take 
form and become visible — with an odd resemblance 
to the bacteria of physical disease, which he had 
seen magnified and recorded on paper — were somehow 
chasing each other in his brain. They tumbled 
about and confused him, challenging him to catch 
them and jarring with each other. 

He breathed heavily and longed for air. One of 
the windows was open ; he staggered to it and put 
his head out gasping for breath, remaining there 
till the darkness began to fall, and then the ner- 
vousness became so intolerable that it was impos- 
sible for him to stay in the room. He felt that if 
he were to encounter his wife for the first time in' 
the presence of this painting he should be unable 
to speak to her with proper energy. But as he got 
up to leave he determined to adopt another cue in 
speaking of Zina. He would call her scatter-brained 
and even mad. He was not sure that he himself 
was not beginning to be a little mad as he staggered 
out of the room, conscious of a second self which 
seemed strangely to sympathise with his wife’s wildest 
aspirations, her enthusiasms, her exaggerations — a 
second self which was a disapproving and impassive 
spectator of the conduct of his first self. This again 
was a little crazy ; it reminded him of De Marsay 
in Balzac’s novel. 

“A second self? what is that but another sort of 


For better , for worse . 323 

conscience?" he asked with a feeble attempt to keep 
up his former sneers at conscience, “which wis a 
mere matter of education, dependent on climate.” 

He had always been a proud man, if not a vain 
one, but he was suddenly ashamed of this charac- 
teristic, when the vanity which had hitherto been 
a low one was transformed to a higher platform. 
He suffered for the first time from the knowledge 
of his baseness. 

That evening when Zina re-entered her studio and 
heard that George Layton had been there waiting 
for her more than an hour, she gave an exclamation 
of despair, her arms falling by her side. What had 
she in her life still which it was possible for him 
to take away from her ? Her absolute independence, 
her liberty to come and go, how long would he 
leave her this? 

“ He cannot force me to go back to him without 
appealing to the law, and he will not do that; he 
is too proud, ” she thought, unable for the whole of 
the next day to settle down to her work, but 
wandering about, or walking up and down the 
rooms, as had been her habit once before in the 
perplexities of her earlier youth. 

About a week afterwards she came to Mary, 
holding a telegram in her hand, “Eva has written 
to me, ” she said, “ I ought to have told you before. 
George Layton is seriously ill — they think he is 
dying. ” 

Mary could not see the face which was turned 
away from her with the eyes closed to hide the 
fact that Zina had been weeping bitterly. She was 
trying if possible to keep back the tears. 

“ Do not be afraid,” said Mary in her confident 
way. “He will not die yet — he has too much to 
learn. ” 

“ I said that nothing would make me go to him— 
unless he were on his death-bed — but I cannot keep 


324 


A Waking . 


away now. I should reproach myself if I did. Yet 
if I thought they were playing me a trick,” cried 
Zina passionately, speaking in an altered voice, 
with her face still turned from the light. 

“ They would not dare to do that, ” answered Mary. 

One sight of the sick man, unconscious and rav- 
ing in delirium, proved that whatever else Eva 
might have been guilty of in her desire to patch up 
matters, this was no trick. It was nothing but 
the old story, a finale which any one with a particle 
of common-sense might easily have predicted. For 
George Layton, who had been neglecting his health 
during the excitement and mortification of the last 
few months, and who for some time past had been 
in the habit of drugging himself because he was 
sleepless with anxiety, had hurried home feeling 
more unwell than usual after his visit to his wife’s 
studio, and had taken during the next day or two, 
long lonely walks in wet weather without changing 
his clothes on his return. A cold had settled on 
his lungs, and before he could be persuaded to 
send for medical aid he had been suffering from 
pleurisy. 

He prided himself on never having been ill in 
his life and would not acknowledge that he was so, 
even when almost unconscious. He had strug- 
gled against circumstances, ashamed of the vi- 
sions which came to him when he tossed from 
side to side of his bed, complaining of his inability 
to sleep, but the delirium had set in before Zina 
heard of his illness. 

To listen to his self-accusing ravings was one of 
the most terrible penances which could have been 
inflicted on her. But if she drew back with a 
determination not to pry into his secrets, and to 
hear as little as she could, we will also drawback. 
For if it is the duty of the story-teller to moralise 
as little as possible, feeling sure that the exhibition 


For better, for worse. 


325 


of life as it is will preach most eloquently for 
itself, it is equally his duty to draw a veil of com- 
passion over those remorseful agonies of a soul which 
should be unveiled only to the Creator. 

Zina only became conscious as the time passed 
on of those hundreds of impulses to be unselfish and 
noble which had come to Layton as to other men. 
And though they might seem to have departed and 
left no trace behind, in reality they were yet there. 

“He is a hard bad man,” she had said to herself, 
but as she heard him in his wanderings she thought 
“he is not all bad.” For at one time he murmured 
of spring flowers, and at another of the long hours 
of a tortured conscience during sleepless nights, 
worse than the agonies described by Dante. At 
one time he would call upon Agnes and reproach 
her for not having told him all the truth about herself, 
and at another he accused himself of having her 
murder at his door. At one time he fancied him- 
self at Florence meeting first of all with Zina, and 
at another in Switzerland with the blossoms on the 
trees stooping to meet the blossoms on the grass. 
“You were confiding, but you had relations; they 
should have helped you to make inquiries,” he 
muttered as he tossed to and fro on his pillows. 
And then again, “ How could you imagine I meant 
to do you so great a wrong, or that you would 
take it so much to heart?” 

Many facts which he had hitherto forgotten came 
back to his memory, and on those occasions when 
Zina could not tell how much was true, or how 
much conjured up by his diseased bodily condition 
she would put her hands to her ears, and fall on 
her knees beside the bed. 

She had been so little used to prayer, that she 
could not tell if this were praying. 

At any rate it was an effort to trust her own future 
and that of the man who was suffering also to the 


A Waking . 


$26 

magic of a Love which had power to cast out devils. 

She did not venture even to wish that the cup 
of suffering should be immediately taken away from 
either of them, for the problem of pain was begin- 
ning to be better understood by her, and she saw 
for the first time how the tragic messenger of 
sorrow, which had come to her in varying forms 
at different periods of her life, might have been, 
after all, an angel in disguise. Her mental effort 
as she knelt was to put personal wishes on one 
side, to seek to have herself purged from egotism or 
passionate desire, and to be swayed only by that 
Love, which was struggling against the armies of 
evil, defeating and expelling, whilst it strengthened 
the impoverished will. 

She trembled as she listened to the sick man’s 
mutterings, conscious as she was of misgivings as 
to what he might say, and yet determined never 
again to ply him with questions. Who was she to 
judge him? She had not as yet ventured to call 
herself a Christian, but she was logical enough to see 
that if she changed her independent idealism for 
the idealism of Christianity no plea could go forth 
from her for release from the life-long vow — even 
if it were “for worse.” 

Her sense of paralysis in dealing with these diffi- 
culties did not prevent her from effectually aiding 
the nurses in making vehement efforts for his recov- 
ery. The more she concentrated her attention on 
dealing with the physical disease the less time had 
she for tormenting herself with all sorts of surmises. 
And her sympathy in this respect was so great that, 
as his breathing grew deeper and feebler, a slight 
tremor seemed to shake her own delicate frame, 
and her own breathing grew correspondingly troubled. 

On the first day when he was perceptibly better 
she sat perfectly still behind the curtain hoping 
that he would not notice her. But the depths of 


For better , for worse. 


327 


her dark eyes glittered when the physician came 
and went, reporting favourably on the case. 

The first time that the invalid recognised her she 
was standing over him with a cup. Her smile was 
a little subdued, but she did not start or turn away 
from him. He had passed through a fiery ordeal 
of suffering, which was so far well for him that it 
might point the way through unselfishness to a 
higher life. She, too, had suffered, and she could 
be sorry for him. The Pharisaic spirit, if she had 
ever had it, was entirely beaten out of her. Nature 
seemed to have taken its revenge on her, and she 
was conscious that she was no better than other 
women. 

“ I ought to be sorry for you, ” she said, a few 
days afterwards, when, in the weariness of con- 
valescence, he was lamenting his disinclination to 
take up the old threads of life again with the same 
surroundings, “ I ought to be sorry because you are 
unhappy, and I have been terribly unhappy myself. 
Who am I, to take it upon me bitterly to condemn?” 

But when he suggested that in America or 
Australia one might turn over a new page in 
existence, unsullied by memories of the past, and 
when he looked at her inquiringly, she only as- 
sented to the fact. “ That is true, ” she said, “ it may 
be as well to make a break.” 

“If only for a time?” he added, tentatively, and 
was a little surprised when she answered: 

“ That will be a good plan. It is what we both 
want — a little time. ” 

He went. But she did not offer to go with him. 
She had nursed him when he was ill and made no 
parade of her nursing. But it seemed to be all she 
was capable oi—just then. 

“For better, for worse.” She had rebelled in pas- 
sionate horror like many another woman against 
the hopeless wreck of all human happiness which 

* 


328 


A Waking . 


had seemed to be involved in the binding together 
of two souls so differently constituted in an indis- 
soluble tie from which death only could free her. 
But she was awake now; she had been dreaming 
then. Paradoxical as it might sound, she had been 
wakened by a dream. And she had learnt to see 
that there are questions of more importance than 
personal pain. 

All thoughts of meting out judgment to a fellow- 
creature had ceased. Yet something had gone out 
of her, which no power of the man who still loved 
her would ever be able to restore. It was heart- 
rending, for when she searched to the very roots 
of her life, she found that the dead ashes of it 
remained — nothing more. 

As the Germans say, hin ist hin. 


THE END. 


MRS. HAROLD STAGG 


A NOVEL. 


BY 

Robert Grant, 

Author of “Jack Hall,” etc. 


Beautifully Illustrated by Harry C. Edwards. Paper Cover, 50 
Cents. Bound in Cloth, $1.00. 


This is a brilliant novel, in which the author has given a free 
rein to his undoubted faculty for social satire. Mrs. Harold 
Stagg is a capital portraiture whose prototype may be found in 
the drawing-rooms of New York, Boston and Newport. The 
story is told with the amusing and quiet cleverness which has 
made the author’s reputation, and contains many striking ideas 
which will cause Society’s backbone to creep. Like “ The Anglo- 
maniacs,” it places its heroine under a cross-fire from a wealthy 
swell and a talented youth to fame and fortune unknown — a 
situation which allows Mr. Grant an opportunity to exhibit a 
very interesting and unselfish type of the young American 
woman. In despite of the satire of which Mrs. Harold Stagg is 
the object, every man will like that lady for herself, even thoug> 
he may not be as blindly devoted as her husband. 


LITTLE HEATHER-BLOSSOM 


(ERICA.) 


TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF 

FRAU VON INGERSLEBEN, 


BY 

MARY J. SAFFORD. 


WITH ILL US Tit A TIOHB BY WALLEN B. DAVIS. 


12mo. 470 Pages. Handsomely Bound in Cloth.. Price, $1.00. 
Paper Cover, 50 Cents. 


This novel is one of the most interesting that has been pub- 
lished in this country, taken from the German. It has more 
variety of character and scenery than is usual in German novels. 
All admirers of Marlitt will find it a novel to their taste. Miss 
Safford, the translator, who was the first to discover the merit of 
Werner and Heimburg, is very partial to it. Among its salient 
points are a wreck, a runaway, life in a castle on the Rhine, with 
its terraces sloping to the river, balls, entertainments and exqui- 
site character sketches. The heroine is one of the loveliest 
creations of fiction. 

For sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, or sent, postpaid, 
on receipt of price, by the publishers, 

ROBERT BONNER’S SONS, 

Cor, William and Spruce Streets, New York. 


THE LITTLE COUNTESS. 


BY 

E. VON DINCKLAGE, 

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN 


By S. E. BOGGS. 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY WARREN B. DAVIS. 


12mo. 318 Pages. Handsomely Bound in Cloth. Price, $1.00. 

Paper Cover, 50 Cents. 

“ The Little Countess” is a delightful novel. It is full of life 
and movement, and, in this respect, is superior to most transla- 
tions from the German. It is distinctly a story to be read for 
pure enjoyment. The little countess belongs to an ancient and 
noble family. She is left an orphan in a lonely old castle, with a 
few servants and pets. Her heroic temper sustains her in every 
trial. The part played by an American girl in the story is very 
amusing, and shows what queer ideas are entertained of American 
women by some German novelists. 

For sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, or sent, postpaid, 
on receipt of price, by the publishers, 

ROBERT BONNER’S SONS, 

Cor. William and Spruce Streets, Nev 1 Vork. 


THE IMPROVISATORE; 

OR, 

LIFE IN ITALY. 


TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH OF 

Hans Christian Andersen. 

By MARY HOWITT. 

ILLUSTRATED BY HARRY 0. EDWARDS. 


12mo. Bound in Cloth, $1.00. Paper Cover, 50 Cents. 


This is an entrancing romance dealing with the classic scenes 
of Italy. To those who desire to behold with their own eyes 
those scenes, it will create a fresh spring of sentiment, and fill 
them with unspeakable longing. To those who have visited the 
fair and memory-haunted towers and towns of Florence, Rome 
and Naples, it will revive their enthusiasm and refresh their 
knowledge. Andersen published this novel immediately after 
his return from Italy, and it created an extraordinary effect. 
Those who had depreciated the author’s talent came forward 
voluntarily and offered him their homage. It is a work of such 
singular originality and beauty that no analysis or description 
could do it justice, and the universal admiration which it at once 
excited has caused it to be read and reread throughout the world. 

For sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, or sent, postpaid, 
on receipt of price, by the publishers, 

ROBERT BONNER’S SONS, 

Cor. William and Spruce Streets, New York. 


An Insignificant Woman 


51 Storg of 5lrtist iDife. 

BY 

W. Heimburg. 

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN 


By MARY STUART SMITH. 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY WARREN B. DAVIS. 


12mo. Beautifully Illustrated. Handsomely Bound in Cloth, 
Price, $1.00. Paper Cover, 50 Cents. 


This is a matchless story. It is a vindication of woman. It 
ends finely, so as to bring out beautifully the glorious character 
of the heroine, the insignificant woman. The combination of 
the artistic and practical in this story makes it peculiarly suited 
to the taste of our times. It is impossible to imagine more 
beautiful and effective lessons of magnanimity and forbearance, 
strength and gentleness, than are inculcated in this novel. 
Every woman who lives for her children, her husband and her 
home will find her heart mirrored in the pages of this fascinating 
story. It is told in a manner that must please all readers, and is 
exquisitely rendered in the translation. 

For sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, or sent, postpaid, 
on receipt of price, by the publishers, 

ROBERT BONNER’S SONS, 

Cor. William and Spruce Streets, New York. 


LIDA CAMPBELL, 


OR 

DRAMA OF A LIFE. 


51 Novd. 


BY 

JEAN KATE LUDLUM, 

Author of “ Under Oath,” “ Under a Cloud,” “ John Win- 
throp's Defeat,” etc. 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY H. M. EATON. 

12mo. 351 Pages. Handsomely Bound in Cloth. Price, $1.00. 

Paper Cover, 50 Cents. 


This beautiful story was written one year ago. Even then the 
author had premonitory symptoms of the fell disease which so 
recently struck her down in her youth. Her talent was develop- 
ing rapidly, and she promised to become one of the most popular 
' writers of the day. “ Lida Campbell, or Drama of a Life,” is a 
novel of the present. Its characters and incidents are familiar, 
and have the strong interest of natural sequence and probability. 
The emotional power which is a marked characteristic of Miss 
Ludlum’s work is strongly wrought out in this novel, and the 
most casual reader cannot fail to be intensely interested in it. 

For sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, or sent, post- 
paid, on receipt of price, by the publishers, 

ROBERT BONNER’S SONS, 

Cor. William and Spruce Streets, New York. 


TRUE DAUGHTER 

OF HARTENSTEIN. 

21 Novd. 


TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN 

BY MARY J. SAFFORD, 

Translator of “ Wife and Woman,” 11 Little Heather- Blossom,” 
“ True Daughter of Hartenstein,” etc., etc. 

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY WARREN B. DAVIS. 


12mo. 350 Pages. Handsomely Bound in Cloth. Price, $1.00. 

Paper Cover, 50 Cents. 


Miss Salford’s translations from the German are invariably in 
teresting. All who have read “ Little Heather-Blossom ” will be 
delighted with this exquisite companion story. The heroine pos- 
sesses every charming attribute of rare womanhood, in whom 
love is always the predominating motive. The scenes and cir- 
cumstances are new and strange, and the course of the story 
passes from one interesting situation to another, so that the read- 
er’s interest is never relaxed. This novel takes us out of the 
groove of every-day life, and introduces us to scenes and charac- 
ters altogether fresh and original. The weird and prophetic 
gypsy character gives it a touch of mystery. It is altogether a 
most perfect and delightful story. 

For sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, or sent, post- 
paid, on receipt of price, by the publishers, 

ROBERT BONNER’S SONS, 

Cor. William and Spruce Streets, New York. 


“A GOOD FRENCH NOVEL.” 


MADEMOISELLE DESROCHES 


BY 

Andre Theuriet, 


TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH 


By META DE VERE. 

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY HARRY C. EDWARDS. 


12mo. 320 Pages. Illustrated. Handsomely Bound in Cloth, 

Price, $1.00. Paper Cover, 50 Cents. 


Andre Theuriet is a name well known to readers of choice 
fiction. Her novels occupy a high place in modern French 
literature. Many of them have been translated and published 
here, but this one, so far as we can ascertain, is entirely new. 
It is the story of a French physician’s daughter brought up by a 
French peasant family, whose good sense and delicacy of feeling 
are strengthened by a simple country life. Her subsequent his- 
tory is full of interest, and shows how closely character and truth 
and romance are related. 

For sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, or sent, postpaid, 
on receipt of price, by the publishers, 

ROBERT BONNER’S SONS, 

Cor. William and Spruce Streets. New York. 


REUNITED 


A STORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


BY A POPULAR SOUTHERN AUTHOR. 


Illustrated by F. A. Carter. 


Handsomely Decorated Paper Cover, Price, 50 Cents. Bound 
in Cloth, Price, $1.00. 


This is a splendid novel of the late War. It deals with the 
armies and their operations on both sides and shows the feelings 
of brothers who crossed swords in the conflict. The main theatre 
of the incidents is the State of Kentucky and the famous blue- 
grass region celebrated for its beautiful women, its fine horses 
and its more widely known Bourbon whiskey. There is a brisk 
movement in the novel, in keeping with scouting, marching and 
cavalry charging. The author was a soldier, and he has crowded 
his pages with adventures and stories of camp-life, which have 
great interest, and charm one by their truth to nature. Rarely 
has any great crisis produced more heroic spirits than the War 
for the Union. They fought and bled on both sides of the line, 
and this novel commemorates their valor, and shows how true 
hearts were reunited at the end of the struggle, and that peace 
brought more than mere cessation from strife. This is a novel 
which appeals to every one. 


THE TWO HUSBANDS; 

OR, 

BURIED SECRETS. 

BY 

MRS. HARRIET LEWIS. 


Author of “ Her Double Life," 11 Lady Kildare ,” “ Edda's 
Birthright ,” “ Beryl's Husband," etc. 

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY F. A. CARTER. 


12mo. 402 Pages. Handsomely Bound in Cloth. Prioe, $1.00. 

Paper Cover, 50 Cents. 


This is one of the most interesting of Mrs. Lewis’s novels. It 
opens with the quest for an heiress. Some of the chapter-headings 
are full of suggestiveness, as, for instance: “The Night Before 
the Wedding,” “Husband 'and Wife,” “Affairs Take a Strange 
Turn,” “ A Conflict,” “ Now for Revenge,” “ Explanations,” etc. 
There is a plot and strong situations, and abundance of incident 
and movement jn the story. Mrs. Lewis never failed to write a 
novel that would hold the reader from the first to the last chapter 
and satisfy the desire for agreeable excitement. To all who have 
read and admired “Her Double Life” we recommend “The 
Two Husbands.” 

For sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, or sent, post- 
paid, on receipt of price, by the publishers, 

ROBERT BONNER’S SONS, 

Cor. William and Spruce Streets, New York. 


A SON OF OLD HARRY. 

51 Nooel. 


BY 

ALBION W. TOURGICE, 

Author of “ A Fool's Errand ,” “ Bricks Without Straw f 
“ Figs and Thistles ,” “ Hot Plowshares ,” 


WITS ILLUSTRATIONS BY WARREN B. DAVIS. 


12mo. Handsomely Bound In Cloth. Price, $1.50. 


Judge Tourgee gives to his admirers fresh cause of rejoicing, 
in his new novel, “ A Son of Old Harry.” Nothing more origi- 
nal and more true to life and nature has ever appeared in America 
than this story of the Kentucky blue-grass region and its horses 
and horse-loving people. No reader of his novels needs to be 
told that Judge Tourgee loves a horse. His horses are some- 
thing more than mere incidents or furniture ; they are actual 
characters, and so linked with the personality and fortunes of his 
people that they are essential to the action and development ol 
the novel. In “ A Son of Old Harry,” he has given a free rein 
to his pen in dealing with a subject so near his heart. It contains 
the best that he has to give on the subject. The sweet and pure 
love history, which forms the groundwork, and the thrilling inci- 
dents of the war in Kentucky, which form an important part, 
give the novel immense interest. 

For sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, or sent, postpaid, 
on receipt of price, by the publishers, 

ROBERT BONNER’S SONS, 

Cor. William and Spruce Streets, New York. 


A NEW NOVEL 

By the Popular Author, Mrs* Amelia E. Barr, 

A Cheap Edition: Price, 50 Cents. 


THE BEADS OF TASMER. 

BY 

MRS. AMELIA E. BARR. 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY WARREN B. DAVIS. 


12mo. 395 Pages. Handsomely Bound in English Cloth. Uniform 
with “A Matter of Millions” and “The Forsaken Inn,” By 
Anna Katharine Green. Price, $1.25. Paper Cover, 50 Cents. 


“ The Beads of Tasmer,” by Mrs. Amelia E. Barr, is a power- 
ful and interesting story of Scotch life. The singular and stren- 
uous ambition which a combination of ancient pride and modern 
greed inspires ; the loveliness of the Scotch maidens, both High- 
landers and Lowlanders ; the deep religious nature of the people ; 
the intense manifestation of these characteristic traits by Scotch 
lovers of high and low degree ; the picturesque life of the coun- 
try, involving the strangest vicissitudes of fortune and the exhibi- 
tion of the most loving and loyal devotion, constitute a theme 
which is of the highest intrinsic interest, and which is developed 
by the accomplished authoress with consummate art and irresist- 
ible power. “ The Beads of Tasmer ” is certainly one of Mrs. 
Barr’s very best works, and we shall be much mistaken if it does 
not take high rank among the most successful novels of the 
century. 

F or sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, or sent, postpaid, 
on receipt of price, by the publishers, 

ROBERT BONNER’S SONS, 

Cor. William and Spruce Streets, New York. 


EUGENIE GRANDET 


TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF 


Honore De Balzac. 

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY JAMES FAGAN. 


12mo. Bound in Cloth, $1.00. Paper Cover, 50 Cents. 


“Eugenie Grandet” is one of the greatest of novels. It is the 
history of a good woman. Every student of French is familiar 
with it, and an opportunity is now afforded to read it in a good 
English translation. The lesson of the book is the hideousness 
of the passion of the miser. Eugenie’s father is possessed by it 
in a degree of intensity probably unknown in America, and to 
our public it will come as a revelation. What terrible suffering 
he inflicts upon his family by his ferocious economy and unscru- 
pulousness only Balzac’s matchless narrative could show. The 
beautiful nature of Eugenie shines like a meteor against the black 
background, and her self-sacrifice, her sufferings and her superb 
strength of character are wrought out, and the story brought to a 
climax, with the finest intellectual and literary power and dis- 
crimination. 

For sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, or sent, postpaid, 
on receipt of price, by the publishers, 

ROBERT BONNER’S SONS, 

Cor. William and Spruce Streets, New York. 


WIFE AND WOMAN; 

OR, 

A TANGLED SKEIN. 

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF 

L. Haidheim. 

By MARY J- SAFFORD. 

WITH ILL VS TBA TIONS BY F. A. CARTER. 

12mo. Beautifully Illustrated. Handsomely Bound in Cloth, 
Price, $1.00. Paper Cover, 50 Cents. 


“ A thoroughly good society novel.” This is the verdict of a 
bright woman after reading this story. It belongs to the Marlitt 
school of society novels, and the author is a favored contributor 
to the best periodicals of Germany. It has a good plot, an 
abundance of incident, very well drawn characters and a good 
ending. There is no more delightful story for a summer holiday. 

For sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, or sent, postpaid, 
on receipt of price, by the publishers, 

ROBERT BONNER’S SONS, 

Cor. William and Spruce Streets, New York 


THE NORTHERN LIGHT. 

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF 

E. WERNER, 


BY 

Mrs. D. M. Lowrey. 


12mo. 373 Pages. Handsomely Bound in Cloth, Price, $1.00. 
Paper Cover, 60 Cents. 


Since the death of the author of “Old Ma’mselle’s Secret,” 
Werner is the most popular of living German writers. Her 
novels are written with great literary ability, and possess the 
charm of varied character, incident and scenery. “ The Northern 
Light ” is one of her most characteristic stories. The heroine is 
a woman of great beauty and strength of individuality. No less 
interesting is the young poet who, from beginning to end, con- 
stantly piques the curiosity of the reader. 

For sale by all booksellers, or sent, postpaid, on receipt of 
price, by 

ROBERT BONNER’S SONS, Publishers, 

Cor. William and Spruce Streets, New York. 


THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 


% Bond. 


BY 

HONORE' DE BALZAC, 

Author of “ Cesar Birotteau,” “ The Alchemist,” “ Cousm 
Pons,” “Eugenie Grandet,” etc., etc. 

Translated from the French by Mrs. Fred. M. Dey. 

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY WARREN B. DA VIS. 

12mo. 350 Pages. Handsomely Bound in Cloth. Price, $1.00. 

Paper Cover, 50 Cents. 


“ The Country Doctor ” is one of Balzac’s greatest creations. 
It is the portrait of an ideal man in a situation where superior 
ability and knowledge enable him to raise a whole community to 
a higher level of morality, prosperity and intelligence. It is a 
study in social science far more valuable than dull treatises and 
histories of social experiments. It is full of human interest and 
feeling and that wonderful realism which makes all of Balzac’s 
works like veritable stories of real life. The heroine^ is a creature 
of rare beauty and charm. * 

For sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, or sent, post- 
paid, on receipt of price, by the publishers, 

ROBERT BONNER’S SONS, 

Cor. William and Spruce Streets, New York. 


EDITH TREVOR'S SECRET 


BY 


MRS. HARRIET LEWIS, 

Author of “ Her Double Lifef “ Lady Kildare ,” “ Beryl's 
Husband ,” “ The Two Husbands ,” “ Sundered 
Hearts f “ Edda's Birthright ,” etc., etc. 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY WARREN B. DAY IS. 


12mo. 370 Pag-es. Handsomely Bound in Cloth. Price, $1.00. 

Paper Cover, 50 Cents. 


“Edith Trevor’s Secret” is a romantic love story, the scene of 
which is laid in the Black Forest of Germany, and in the rich and 
aristocratic circles of London society. The heroine is an exquisite 
girl, who has been brought up in the shadow of the mountains, 
where* she is discovered by a young English nobleman. When 
they have become betrothed, the jealousy and ambition of others 
interpose to prevent the marriage, and a rapid succession of inci- 
dents and situations of surpassing interest follow. 

For sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, or sent, post- 
paid, on receipt of price, by the publishers, 

ROBERT BONNER’S SONS, 

Cor. William and Spruce Streets, New York. 


THE CHOICE SERIES. 


*« 


1 .- 

2 .- 

3. - 

4. - 

5. - 

6 . - 

7. - 

8 . - 

9.- 

10 .- 
11 .- 
12 .- 

13. - 

14. - 

15. 

16. 

17, 

18, 

19. 

20 . 
21 . 
22 . 

23. — ' 

24. 
25 

26. 

27, 

28 


-A MAD BETRDTIT ATi. By Lama Jean 
Libbey. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 
-HENRY M. STANLEY. By H. F. Red- 
dall. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 

-HER DOUBLE LIFE. By Mrs. Har- 
riet Lewis. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 
-UNKNOWN. By Mrs. Southwortli. 

Cloth, $1.00 : paper, 50 cts. 

-THE HUN MAKER OF MOSCOW. By 
Sylvanus Cobb, Jr. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 
50 cts. ,, 

-MAUD MORTON. By Major A. R. 

Calhoun. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 
-THE HIDDEN HAND. By Mrs. 

Southwortli. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 
-SUNDERED HEARTS. By Mrs. Har- 
riet Lewis. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 
-THE STONE-CUTTER OF LISBON. 
By Win. Henry Peck. Cloth, $1.00; 
paper, 50 cts. 

-LADY KILDARE. By Mrs. Harriet 
Lewis. Cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cts. 
-CRIS ROCK. By Captain Mayue Reid. 

Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 

-NEAREST AND DEAREST. By Mrs. 

Southwortli. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 
-THE BAILIFF’S SCHEME. By Mrs. 

Lewis. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 

-A LEAP IN THE DARK. By Mrs. 
Southwortli. Cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cts. 

LIFE'S SHADOWS. By 
Cloth, $1.00: paper, 50 cts. 
LADY OF LONE. By Mrs. 
Cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cts. 
Laura Jean Libbey. Cloth, 


-THE OLD 

Mrs. Lewis. 

-THE LOST 

Southwortli. 

-IONE. By 


By Mrs. E. D. 
$1.00; paper, 


29. 

30. 

31 

32 

33 

34 


$1.00 ; paper 50 cts. 

-FOR WOMAN’S LOVE. 

E. N. Southwortk. Cloth, 

50 cts. 

—CESAR BIROTTEAU. By Honore De 
Balzac. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 
-THE BARONESS BLANK. By 
Niemann. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 
—PARTED BY FATE. By Laura Jean 
Libbey. Cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cts. 
-THE FORSAKEN INN. Bv Anna 
Katharine Green. Cloth, $1.50; paper, 
50 cts 

OTTTLTE ASTER’S SILENCE. 

Translated from the German. Cloth, 
$1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 

ED DA'S BIRTHRIGHT. By Mrs. Har- 
riet Lewis. Cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cts. 

— 1 THE ALCHEMIST. From the French 
of Honore De Balzac. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 
50 cts. 

—UNDER OATH. — An Adirondack 
Story. By Jean Kate Ludlum. Cloth, 
$1.00* ; paper, 50 cts. 

COUSIN PONS. From the French of 
Honore De Balzac. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 
50 cts. 

-THE UNLOVED WTFE. 

E. N. Soutkworth. Cloth, 

50 cts. 

—LILITH. By Mrs. E. D. 
worth. Cloth, 

REUNITED. 


By Mrs. E. D. 
$1.00; paper, 


E. N. Soutli- 

$1.00; paper, 50 cts. 

By A Popular Southern 
Author. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 
—MRS. HAROLD STAGG. By Robert 
Grant. Cloth. $1.00; paper, 50 cts. 
.-THE BREACH OF CUSTOM. From 
the German. Cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cts. 
.—THE NORTHERN LIGHT. Trans- 
lated from the German of E. Werner. 
Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 

.-llERlYL’S HUSBAND. By Mrs. Har- 
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35. — A LOVE MATCH. By Sylvanus 

Cobb, Jr. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 

36. — A MATTER OF MILLIONS. By Anna 

Katharine Green. Cloth, $1.50; papt., 
50 cts. 

37. — EUGENIE GRANDET. By Honore 

De Balzac. Cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cts. 

38. — THE IMPROVISATOR E. Translated 

from the Dauish of Haus Christian 
Andersen. Cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cts. 

39. — PAOLl, THE WARRIOR BISHOP, 

or The Fall of the Christians. By W. 
C. Kitchin. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 

40. — UNDER A CLOUD. By Jean Kate 

Ludlum. Cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cts. 

41. — WIFE AND WOMAN. Translated 

from the German by Mary J. Salford. 


Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 

2.-AN INSIGNIFICANT 


42. — A N INSIGNIFICANT WOMAN. 

Translated from the German of W. 
Heimburg. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 
43— THE CARLETONS. By Robert 'Grant. 
Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 

44. — M ADEMOISE LLE DESROCHES. 

Translated from the French of Andre 
Theuriet. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 

45. — THE BEADS OF TASMER. By 

Amelia E. Barr. Cloth, $1.25; paper, 


50 cts 

46. — JOHN WINTHR O P’S DEFEAT. By 

Jean K. Ludlum. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50c. 

47. — LITTLE HEATHER - BLOSSOM. 

Translated from the German, by Mary J. 
Salford. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 

48. — GLORIA. By Mrs. E. D. E. N. South- 

worth. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 

49. — DAVID LINDSAY. A Sequel to Gloria. 

By Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southwortli. Cloth, 
$1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 

50. — THE LITTLE COUNTESS. Trans- 

lated from the German by S. E. Boggs. 
Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 

51. — THE CHAUTAUQUANS. By Johu 

Habberton. Cloth, $1.25 ; paper, 50 cts. 

52. — THE TWO HUSBANDS. By Mrs. 

Lewis. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper 50 cts. 

53. — MRS. BARK’S SHORT STORIES. 

By Amelia E. Barr. Cloth, $1.25 ; paper, 
50 cts. 


54. - WE PARTED AT THE ALTAR. By 

Laura Jean Libbey. Cloth. $1.00; paper, 
50 cts 

55. — WAS SHE WTFE OR WIDOW? By 

Malcolm Bell. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 5 > cts. 

56. — THE COUNTRY DOCTOR. B. rion- 

ore De Balzac. Cloth, $1 .00 ; paper, 50 cts. 

57. — FLOllABEL’S LOVER, or Rival 

Belles. By Laura Jean Libbey. Cloth, 
$1 .00 ; paper, 50 cts. 

58. — LIDA CAMPBELL. By Jean Kate 

Ludlum. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 

59. — EDITH TREVOR’S SECRET. By 

Mrs. Lewis. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 

60. — CECIL ROSSE. A Sequel to Edith 

Trevor’s Secret. By Mrs. Harriet Lewis. 
Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 

61. — LOVE IS LORD OF ALL. Translated 

from the German, by Mary J. Salford. 
Cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cts. 

62. — TRUE DAUGHTER OF HARTEN- 

STEIN. From the German, by Mary J 
Salford. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 

6?.— ZINA’S AWAKING. By Mrs. J. Kent 
Spender. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cts. 

64. -MORRIS JULIAN’S WIFE. By Eliza 

betli Olmis. Cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cts. 

65. — DEAR ELSIE. Translated from the Ger 

man, by Mary J. Salford. Cloth, $1.00; 
paper, 50 cts. 





















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